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Sketches of the Life of /y/^ 

Honorable T. B. WALKER 



A Compilation of 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 

by Many Authors 



LUMBERMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Minneapolis, Minn. 

1907 



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PREFACE 



THE accompanjring compilation consisting of newspaper clippings, 
magazine articles and biographical reviews gives a very compre- 
hensive idea of the life, character and achievements of the Honorable 
T. B. Walker. I have known that gentleman since my early childhood 
days. Any detailed statement by me recounting the innumerable 
trials and vicissitunes that have beset his path, or an attempt on my 
part to record his virtues and accomplishments would be only for the 
purpose of testifying to his indomitable courage, sterling integrity, 
sagacity and generous liberality. 

Excepting for its authenticity any sketch of mine could not possi- 
bly be as interesting or comprehensive as a composite picture, which is 
the production of a hundred or more different writers, each recording 
his own views of that gentleman or relating some of his acts or 
achievements. 

That there should be some similarity in the biographies thus 
included is only natural. To my knowledge none that appears in this 
book was written or to any considerable extent inspired by either 
Mr. Walker or any of the immediate members of his family. The 
authors of these various productions have had to depend largely on 
information secured from friends or acquaintances of Mr. Walker for 
the material with which to compile these biographies. A number of 
these articles w^ere penned by men who have know^n Mr. Walker for a 
quarter of a century or more and are more the expression of their own 
estimation and regard for him than a grouping of facts. 

No attempt has been made to edit any of the articles which make 
up this scrap book. Neither do they appear consecutively as to dates 
nor with any reference to articles that preceed or follow each other. 

I have selected from several hundred newspaper clippings those 
articles in which the writer has expressed an opinion of Mr. Walker, 
chronicled some event in which he has taken a prominent part or re- 
lated some act of his either of a public or private nature. Mr. Walker 
has been a prolific writer and has been outspoken and fearless in ex- 
pressing his opinion on all subjects that affected the present or future 
welfare of the people. Numerous volumes much larger than this would 
be required to print his literary productions, none of which are em- 
braced in this compilation. 

A tireless student and deep thinker, his practical ideas have always 



had much weight in moulding public opinion. Many of his predic- 
tions, although not fully credited at the time when made, have since 
been fully rerified. 

Itis worthy of special mention that during the last twenty-fire 
years, a period when the masses hare continually manifested bitter 
prejudice against men of wealth or large business interests, Mr. 
Walker should have been able to retain to so great an extent the good 
will and approbation not only or those in the community where he 
resides but of citizens all over our country. 

Some of the earlier or later photographs of Mr. Walker have been 
used to illustrate most of the articles as they originally appeared, 
reference in many cases being made to these likenesses. Instead of 
attempting to have these photographs accompany each article, J 
have placed them on separate pages. 

To those who know Mr. Walker personally or by reputation, this 
work will be a source of much pleasure and profit. A careful analysis 
of the universal verdict of the impartial historian here recorded cer- 
tainly endows Mr. Walker with the attributes of a scholar, philosopher 
and philanthropist, as well as those of a shrewd business man, a far- 
sighted capitalist and a public spirited citizen. 

^ * ^ * 

I am individually responsible for the existence of this publication. 
Both my brother, James C. Walker, and myself are greatly indebted 
to Mr. T. B. Walker for very many substantial courtesies and favors 
shown us in the past as well as wise counsel and advice given. In a 
small measure we hope to show our appreciation by presenting him 
with this volume illustrating very completely the high regard and 
loving kindness in which he is held by his fellow men. 

As a literary production I have no excuse to offer for its appear- 
ance. I am confident that it has much of merit, told by many pens, 
and the stories and the lesson taught in following the career of a man 
who from small opportunities has achieved remarkable success might 
well serve to stimulate us all to better and higher aims. 



(^%tr-6UuWi^ 



PERSONAL COMMENT. 

BY PLATT B. WALKER. 

An author who attempts in one short chapter to tell the story of a useful 
and eventful life, must from necessity confine himself almost entirely to details 
without trying to analyze the underlying motives that have actuated the indi- 
vidual in shifting hither and thither like a pawn or rook on the world's great 
chess board. There is in each human existence some subtle theme that ever 
seeks to find expression in certain hopes and ambitions, which, however, are often 
doomed to be drowned by the din of necessity or suppressed by lack of oppor- 
tunity. I have carefully perused the various contributions, many of them by 
talented writers, which make up this compilation. Each in his own style has 
recorded the romance of a fatherless boy who, by determination and perseverance, 
has become an honored and respected citizen and an important and useful factor 
in the industrial, educational and financial world. Far better than I am able to 
do have been told by them the numerous trials, disappointments, achievements 
and successes that have fallen to the lot of Mr. T. B. Walker. It is not my in- 
tention, therefore, to repeat here the details of his career. The critics represented 
in this volume have with kindly eyes painted pen pictures of Mr. Walker as the 
student, the philosopher, the philanthropist and the keen business man. Very 
many of them have credited him with being a specialist in one or more of these 
vocations, while others see in him a past master in all lines. Very few of them 
seem to have acquired a true insight into the intensity of his character or the 
depth of his knowledge on material or speculative affairs of mankind. 

With untiring energy and zeal he has ever concentrated his labor toward 
the accomplishment of those things which are material, enduring and beneficial 
to himself, his associates and the world at large. His indomitable will has ever 
stood guard as a severe task master, urging the faithful performance of the 
hardest tasks even where the results to be accomplished did not seem to justify 
the exertion, or the compensation was entirely inadequate for the energy ex- 
pended. 

As a young man, having worked his way through college by hard knocks, 
Mr. Walker determined to become one of the greatest acknowledged authorities 
on the higher branches of mathematics. Before he was 30 years old, he suc- 
ceeded in that ambition. Even with the multiplication of his enterprises and 
responsibility he has still found time to keep abreast of the progress in this use- 
ful science. To determine to his entire satisfaction the absolute divinity of 
Christ, he early in life made a most exhaustive and careful research of ancient 
and modern literature, both of supposed holy and profane origin. He even fully 
analyzed and studied the doctrines propounded by atheists of renown that he 
might not be biased in coming to a final decision. Christianity from a scientific, 
practical and spiritual foundation was canvassed most thoroughly by him, with 
the result that he has acquired a most abiding faith in its efficacy and a more inti- 
mate knowledge of all the phases of religion than many doctors of divinity who 
expound the Scriptures. 

The innumerable agencies that have produced freedom of thought and action 
and stimulated civilization are all familiar subjects to Mr. Walker, acquired by 
poring over countless essays and treaties by modern philosophers as well as 
those who lived long ago. The dangers that beset our popular form of govern- 
ment and the pitfalls that lie in wait for the political, industrial, and financial 
aflfairs of our nation are visible to him through the lenses left in the records of 
past experiences focused by modern thought. Never a pessimist, he still can 
often discern the signs of the time and thereby foretell the future. With sincere 
notes of warning and wise counsel, he has many times striven to ward oflF impend- 
ing danger. 

He is an intense lover of all that is truly beautiful in nature and art. 
His collection of rare paintings is unequalled by any private collection in this 
country, and he is constantly adding many more beautiful and famous paintings. 
The Public Library of Minneapolis is an enduring evidence of his public work. 



The Museum of Fine Arts equally owes much to him for his liberal patronage and 
wise counsel. The Young Men's Christian Association has had no truer friend 
nor supporter in the community than Mr. Walker. By reason of his interest and 
valuable assistance in this work he has for many years been a northwestern mem- 
ber of the advisory board of the National Y. M. C. A. The theoretical and prac- 
tical affairs of the Minnesota Academy of Science have received much time and 
thought from Mr. Walker. The museum maintained by this society, in the Public 
Library, is probably the most valuable and interesting of any collection in the 
northwest. Those organizations and institutions that serve the poor and needy 
have ever received substantial assistance from him, and many worthy families have 
cause to remember his generosity. His acts of charity are always performed in 
the most modest manner, many of them reaching the proper destination without 
the recipient ever knowing that he was the benefactor. 

The Walker homestead occupies more than one-half of an ordinary city block, 
and is located on Hennepin avenue well within the business district. Mr. Walker 
was one of the first of our citizens to set a worthy example by converting his 
grounds into a park, from which the public are not excluded by fences. Every 
pleasant day can be seen a large number of persons congregated under the wide 
spreading branches of trees, enjoying the two dozen or more large comfortable 
settees placed there by Mr. Walker for their especial benefit. 

Only a few of Mr. Walker's intimate friends know of his remarkable col- 
lection of books. Some years ago a spacious library was constructed, which 
Mr. Walker uses as his private office. Bookcases cover three sides of the room, 
the shelves of which are filled. The standard authors are all here represented. 
Philosophy, science, therapeutics, history, political economy, biography, and 
innumerable modern and ancient treatises on every subject, have here their allotted 
space. Few men have devoted as much time and study to books as has Mr. 
Walker. Few of the many volumes can be found in which many sentences and 
paragraphs have not been underscored by him. 

In his business affairs, Mr. Walker has ever held to a constant and detinite 
purpose. Absolute honesty and integrity has been his motto and a realization 
of his responsibility to his fellow man has been carried into his business and 
social life. Soon after migrating to the North Star state, he was afforded an op- 
portunity of realizing the coming value of the large virgin forests that grew 
along the northern border. To secure a goodly supply of this bounty of nature 
and to husband it for future generations was his ambition. The greedy tax shark 
and the exigencies of the times, however, compelled him to cut off, with the 
other lumbermen, his supply of pine trees. To carry out his fixed purpose he 
then searched our country over and finally in the far west in the Golden state, 
found an immense tract of timber that promised to afford an opportunity of 
carrying out his ideas of economical use and perpetuation of the supply. I am 
confident that it is not for the purpose of laying claim to the title of being the 
owner of the largest amount of timber in this country, or in the world, that Mr. 
Walker has been investing many millions of dollars in these valuable assets. The 
billions of feet of timber that he has now the undisputed title to is vastly more 
than he, his sons, or even his grandsons can profitably utilize. This vast forest, 
utilized as he has planned, will be an incalculable blessing to those that require 
lumber in the centuries that are to come. By simply utilizing the matured trees 
and protecting the young and growing an endless supply is insured. From a 
strictly commercial and mercenary standpoint such enterprises as this are not 
considered logical, and certainly entail expenses and annoyances which Mr. 
Walker can never expect to be compensaiic^l for in his life or the next generation 
to come. 

Any combination or conspiracy intended vo restrain trade or impose a hard- 
ship on the people has ever received his most emphatic disapproval. He has re- 
peatedly declined to pool or consolidate his interests in timber lands either in 
Minnesota or in the west, although constantly importuned to do so and offered 
exceedingly tempting proposals. 

Few people have shown such constant loyalty or have been willing to sacri- 
fice so much in time and money for the city of their adoption as has Mr. Walker. 
Frequently entirely worthy acts of his have been criticised and in many instances 



his confidence in the integrity of the public or the municipality has been misplaced. 
Through all the rebuffs and disappointments his efforts have ever been to further 
the w^elfare of our metropolis. He has never been a speculator in city property 
and the lands he has secured were for use to improve or provide quarters for 
valuable enterprises that materially stimulated the growth and prosperity of the 
city. He is the owner today of more large buildings and personal property than 
any other individual or corporation. These structures have been erected by him 
because he was the only one able to provide quarters commensurate with the 
growing demand of our jobbing trade. 

For a number of years this city endeavored to provide a suitable city market, 
but was unable to interest local or foreign capitalists. Even during a time of 
depression. Mr. Walker, in response to urgent petitions, provided a central mar- 
ket that is today a credit to our community. The only recognition he ever re- 
ceived for this public-spirited act was to have repealed certain privileges and 
exemptions the city had freely proffered to anyone who would provide a market. 
When Rutler Brothers, the large wholesale dry goods and notions merchants, 
were debating whether to locate in Minneannlis or St. Paul, the Commercial Club 
and other civic associations insisted that Mr. Walker was the only citizen able 
to provide the quarters demanded by this much pri7.ed acquisition to our jobbing 
trade. Against his own interests, and contrary to his judgment, he erected the 
largest building for mercantile purposes west of Chicago. To meet the conditions 
necessary to secure the location of Rutler Brothers in the form of reduced rent 
for three years, the citizens contributed two-thirds and Mr. Walker one-third, as 
a fund amounting to $60,000. to nrovidc the rental charge which would net only 
ordinary interest on the value of the property. 

Taking into consideration the increase in the cost of all kinds of building 
material and the high wages that had to be paid to both skilled and common 
laborers, this investment, even without the necessity of making any contribution, 
was not sufficiently profitable to induce any other capitalist to invest his money. 
Solely to further the interests of Minneapolis, Mr. Walker financed the enter- 
prise and erected the building. 

Mr. Walker is a man of extremely sensitive temperament and keenly feels 
any unjust criticism. He fully realizes, however, that there is a natural prejudice 
in the minds of the masses against men of wealth, and accordingly he persistently 
refuses to allow the shafts of bitterness and abuse aimed at men of his class, 
even where they are pointedly personal, to goad him into selfish, narrow or 
mean acts in retaliation. Modest and unassuming in his own affairs, any vulgar 
display of wealth is to him distasteful. Frivolous amusements apparently have 
no fascination for him, and if he can not possess the genuine he refuses the 
imitation or the counterfit. Alwaj's to be found enrolled among the staunch de- 
fenders of impartial justice, he has still a kind heart, and to the appeal of mercy 
has never turned a deaf ear. 

To those who like myself have known him for more than two score of 
years, Mr. Walker has been a constant source of wonder and admiration. A com- 
plete master of himself, he seems often to be free from the bonds and restraints 
that limit the mental and physical capabilities of other men. During his life, 
Mr. Walker has accomplished very much of a permanent and enduring character, 
and I know that I am expressing the sincere desire of all who know him in 
fervently wishing that he may be spared for yet many a long year to round out 
and enjoy the fruits of a well spent life. 
* » «««««««{!»««««««««« 

This sketch would be incomplete should T fail to record the beneficial and 
^ustaining influences which have surrounded Mr. T. B. Walker's home life, and th** 
valuable assistance accorded him by his wife and children. 

With a truly Christian, motherly nature, Mrs. T. B. Walker has exceptional 
talent, thoroughly practical ideas, and executive ability of high degree. Her hus- 
band, her children, and her home, have ever received her best efforts and true 
devotion. Without slighting these duties, she has been able for many years to 
take a very active part in numerous charitable and philanthopic works. 

As a wise counselor and a loyal supporter, she has at all times exerted a sus- 
taining and stimulating influence on her husband. Those who have become per- 



sonally acquainted with her or know the results of her life work, do not hesitate 
to place her in the front rank among the most capable, efficient and admirable 
women of this country. The National Encyclopedia of American Biographies 
includes, in its latest publication, a highly commendatory sketch of her life. 
Among the multitude of persons mentioned in the six large quarto volumes of 
this standard work, only some four or five other women are included. While 
never neglecting or slighting any of the details pertaining to the rearing, training 
and welfare of her large family of eight children, she has for many years been 
foremost in planning, developing and managing many large public and charitable 
works carried on by women of Minneapolis, and has in addition been more or less 
prominent in matters of national importance. She has, with energy, combated 
all forms of intemperance, and especially the blight of the liquor curse. She was 
the principal factor in planning, establishing and maintaining ihe Northwestern 
Hospital, in our city, of which organization she has continually served-as presi- 
dent for the past twenty-five years, devoting much of her time and means to its 
advancement. She is the surviving one of the four originators of the Bethany 
Home, and amid many discouraging circumstances has been very largely respon- 
sible for the construction, supervision and perpetuation of that most helpful and 
important charitable institution of this city. She was also one of the principal 
originators of the Women's Council, which was most successfully maintained here 
for many years and of which she was president during a large part of its 
existence. 

Her time and means have freely been given to help those who were unfortu- 
nate, especially the women and children. The number of such calls has frequently 
been so large and continuous that it is little less than remarkable; that she has 
had time to look after other duties. For years she has continually taxed herself 
to the limit in her family and household aflfairs. while ever ready to respond 
to repeated calls for useful work. Her character, energy, remarkable judgment, 
clear understanding of home and public affairs, has been a most important element 
in giving character and direction to her sons and daughters, and has ably qualified 
them for successful and useful lives. There is scarcely to be found anywhere in 
this country a more nearly ideal family in which the father, mother and children 
are living exemplary lives, devoted to and considerate of each other, and striving 
to do their full share for humanity. Mrs. Walker's part in th'^ development of 
this family life has been equally important with that of her ^usband, and she 
deserves and receives from those familiar with her life an equal sh.ire of the 
credit for the successes which have rewarded the labors of her husband and her 
children. 

****************** 

Mr. T. B. Walker's success is not solely to be measured by the results of his 
public work or his ability to amass a large forttine. It is equally exemplified in the 
character of the sons he has helped to rear to carry on his life work. The 
mother's guiding hand has been a most potent factor in moulding the lives of 
these boys, who have become worthy citizens and honorable mei. Under the 
careful tutorage of Mr. and Mrs. Walker, their sons have proven a pride and 
a comfort to them. 

The most practical methods have been employed by these parents to prepare 
their children for a useful and active life. The old homestead, which has been 
occupied for about thirty-three years, and in which the lives of most all of them 
have been spent, has been the headquarters for all the respectable boys of the 
neighborhood, if not the whole city. In the quiet large groimds back of the house 
there have been, during all these vears, thoroughly equipped machinr, carpenter, 
and blacksmith shops. In the earlier years gas engines, and later, electric motors 
supplied power, and an extensive gymnasium was used for training and j musement. 
Each of the boys was permitted to own a gun at the age of six yet rs, all but 
one of them being expert hunters, and most of them have spent a portion of each 
year in frontier life amongst the ducks, geese, and in deer hunting. They are 
very familiarly known on Lake Minnetonka as expert boatmen, and hav •; secured 
many prizes in yacht races. None of the sons use either liquor or tobaco. They 
are straight-lined, upright, capable and efficient men, whom every one having 
dealings with looks upon with favor, respect and esteem. 



It would be difficult to find anywhere in this broad land another family of five 
boys, each with a large fortune in his own name and the prospects of acquiring 
immense interests later, who have been and are now so willing and anxious to do 
their full share of any manual or mental labor, and who have arrived at the age of 
manhood without acquiring any of the follies and vices so prevalent among the 
great masses of boys and young men. 

Mr. T. B. Walker's characteristics and achievements arc familiar in very 
many by reason of having been frequently reviewed by the daily press and stand- 
ard publications. The important work his sons are now doing, and the material 
assistance they have been to him in projecting and carrying on his enterprises are, 
however, but little known except among business associates with whom they have 
come in contact. 

Among the illustrations which accompany this sketch is a reproduction from 
a recent photograph, showing a most interesting family group, consisting of Mr. 
T. B. Walker and his five sons, all of whom are actively engaged with him in 
carrying on his immense lumber, timber and other enterprises. 

For a long period the eldest son, Gilbert M. Walker, had the contrcjl and man- 
agement of the extensive lumbering and logging business on the Clearwater river 
and the mills at Crookston and Grand Forks. This covered about seventeen 
years of his life, the most of which were passed in the northwestern part of 
the state. He still holds the position of vice-president of the Red River Lumber 
Company, retains general supervision over the business of that company and 
other local interests, such as building, real estate, paper mills, etc., in Minneapolis, 
in which his father is principal owner. 

Fletcher L. Walker, the second son, since the lumber business of the Red 
River Lumber Company was transferred from the Clearwater and Red River to 
the headwaters of the Mississippi at Akeley, and to Minneapolis, has been entrust- 
ed with the entire responsibility of building mills, constructing logging railways, 
cutting the timber, purchasing land, operating the plant and the final sale and dis- 
tribution of the lumber. Under his careful and wise management the business has 
developed from some 25,000,000 feet a year to a prospective output of over 110,- 
000,000 feet for the year 1907. He devotes his entire time to the supervision of 
this business, and is regarded by all who know him as one of the most capable 
and thorough lumbermen in the northwest. 

Willis J. Walker has been in sole charge and active manager of the Walker- 
Akcley business, consisting of logging, contracting, sale of timber lands and logs. 
He has also for years energetically looked after the financial interests and the de- 
tails pertaining to the headquarters affairs of the Red River Lumber Co., at Minne- 
apolis. In the aggregate this has amounted to a financial business probably the 
largest in this line in the country. He has conducted this extensive work in a most 
thorough and capable manner, and to the entire satisfaction of his father and liis 
business associates. Few young men have entrusted to them so important and 
responsible duties. In addition to the large Minnesota interests, he has taken an 
active part in developing the timber holdings of his father in California. He has 
made many trips to that state and assisted in consolidating various timber holdings 
with a view of bringing scattered tracts in diflferent counties into compact groups, 
so as to provide for the best and most economical means of developing and manu- 
facturing the timber. 

Clinton L. Walker graduated from the engincermg department of the Minne- 
sota State University, and has since almost continually been living among and 
taking general supervision of the extensive California timber interests of his father 
and the Red River Lumber Company. By close application and study of the 
problem he is especially well posted on the available timber supply, the valuation 
of stumpage, the preservation of forests and the uses for which the land can be 
utilized. On his judgment and estimates large tracts of timber lands have been 
acquired. Other important work over which he has supervision has been the sur- 
veying of railway lines, preliminary to furnishing an outlet when active manufac- 
turing operations are begun. To him has been entrusted the leasing of rights to 
stockmen to graze their herds on the extensive lands under his control. He makes 
his home in Piedmont, on the heights opposite San Francisco. 

Archie D. Walker, the youngest, completed his schooling at Cornell a year 



ago, and is now actively engaged and energetically supervising the construction 
of large buildings as well as looking after personal aflfairs and real estate holdings 
of his father in Minneapolis. During the absence of Willis Walker on a tour of 
Europe, he is in charge of much of the detail of the Minnesota and California 
timber lands. 

While each of these five sons has his separate department for which he is 
largely held responsible, they act collectively as an advisory committee, and 
before any important move is made it is thoroughly discussed among them and 
agreed upon. Each one has shown a remarkable consideration for the judgment 
and wishes of his brothers and a deference to the wishes and opinions of their 
father. They have demonstrated their ability to carry on local afTairs to such an 
extent that they are now entrusted with its entire management. Timber lands to 
the value of a million dollars are purchased by them, railroads constructed to 
bring out the timber and other equally important enterprises consummated without 
the necessity of bothering Mr. T. B. Walker, who has devoted his time very large- 
ly to public works and the acquiring of the timber lands in the west. 

Mr. T. B. Walker is acknowledged to be one of the wisest and most far-seeing 
business men in the coimtry. With the assistance of his five active sons to carry 
out the enterprises he has inaugurated, it is not surprising that he has been able 
to accomplish such remarkable success. 

The eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walker is the wife of Ernest F. Smith, 
president of the Hennepin Lumber Company, and a valuable member of several 
civic and industrial associations in Minneapolis. Their family residence is on 
Groveland avenue, next to Gilbert Walker's home on one side and Archie Walker's 
on the other side. Mrs. E. F. Smith is a sweet and capable woman, as honored and 
respected in her sphere of life as are her brothers. 

The youngest daughter was the wife of Dr. F. O. Holman, one of the most 
popular and highly respected ministers in the United States. She died in Cali- 
fornia, in January, 1904, shortly after the death of her husband. 

Leon B. Walker, a sixth son, next to the oldest, began work with his brother 
Gilbert during the time when the business was located in Crookston and 
Grand Forks. He was a young man of far more than ordinary ability, and would 
have been a power in the firm, but before his first season had passed, he was 
removed by sudden illness and death. This occurred in 1887. 

To complete this sketch one other person should be mentioned, who, while 
no blood relation, has for a long time been regarded as a member of the Walker 
family. Thirty-three years ago Frank J. Kline, then a young man just from the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, came to Minneapolis. He soon after entered the employ of Mr. 
T. B. Walker, and from that time until the present has never swerved in his 
loyalty and fidelity to Mr. Walker and his interests. As a cruiser, timber estima- 
tor, practical logger and civil engineer, constructing and operating logging railways. 
he has few if any equals in this country. Mr. Kline has continually been entrusted 
with very large responsibilities and has invariably discharged them with credit to 
himself and profit to his employer. He has under all circumstances shown him- 
self a man of determination, perseverance and courage. Much of his time has 
been spent in the upper country, but when in the city he makes the Walker resi- 
dence his home. 

One of the elements which has very materially contributed to Mr. T. B. 
Walker's success has been his remarkable faculty of correctly judging character, 
and his ability to select men to fill responsible positions, who have proven honest, 
efficient and energetic. His sense of justice and his regard for his fellowman has 
always prompted him to treat his employes fairly and award them liberal com- 
pensation. The result has been that he has had associated with him men of the 
highest class, who have always remained loyal, conscientious and trustworthy. 
During the last forty years he has almost continually employed an army of 
laborers in and about his sawmill, constructing large buildings or working at 
other enterprises, yet he has never had a strike among his employes nor has there 
been any dissatisfaction with the treatment they have received or the wages paid. 
For years the sawmills in the northwest were operated eleven and twelve hours 
a day. Mr. Walker, however, never had the men in his mill work more than ten 
hours and paid them the maximum wages that have prevailed. This kind and 



considerate treatment of his employes lias naturally resulted in his securing the 
better class of men and a larger return in profits from their labors than any other 
employer in the northwest. There have grown up under his supervision many 
young men who are now prominent in business affairs or who hold important po- 
sitions with Mr. Walker. Mr. Klein, mentioned above, is one of these gentlemen, 
and another who should not be overlooked is Mr. Charles B. March, who entered 
Mr. Walker's employ over twenty years ago, at the time Mr. Gilbert Walker was 
entrusted with the management of the sawmills at Crookston and Grand Forks. 
Mr. March has received frequent promotion as a recognition of his valuable 
services, and today he is sales manager for the Red River Lumber Company, and 
Mr. Fletcher Walker's first assistant in carrying on the extensive lumber business 
at Akeley and at Minneapolis. Mr. John S. Grist, who is private secretary to Mr. 
Walker, is another who has been continually in his employ for over fifteen years 
William, the coachman, is one of the fixtures at the old homestead, where he has 
made himself very useful for over twenty years. There are scores of other past 
and present employes of Mr. Walker who deserve mention, but space will not 
permit of a record being made here. 



VOLUNTARY TESTIMONIALS. 



The testimony of men who have been 
associated in business for many years, 
expressive of their esteem or judgment 
of the character of those with whom 
they have been associated, is in general 
the most reliable and trustworthy testi- 
mony concerning his true character. 
And those also who have been contem- 
poraneous with, and for many years ac- 
quainted with all the public and private 
affairs of another citizen, are to almost 
an equal extent, in a position to form 
reliable judgments concerning him. 

From among a large number of per- 
sonal letters, I have taken the liberty of 
including some extracts which show 
the high esteem and favorable opinion 
in which Mr. T. B. Walker is held by 
those who know him intimately, both in 
business and social life. 

James J. Hill, the head of the great- 
est railway system in this country, has 
not only a national but a world wide 
reputation. He is noted for being 
frank, sincere and outspoken on all oc- 
casions. The two accompanying letters 
written by him, compliment Mr. Walk- 
er very highly: 

St. Paul, 28th February, 1889. 

I have known Mr. T. B. Walker, of 
Minneapolis, for many years inti- 
mately, and I regard him socially and 
financially as among the most valuable 
of my friends; he is a man who possess- 
es the confidence and regard of all 
who know him. 

Yours respectfullyj 

(Signed) JAS. j. HILL. 
St. Paul, Minn., September 17th, 1895. 

I have known Mr. T. B. Walker for 
more than thirty years. He is a man 
of very large means, and has been 
for many years a leader among the 
most successful men in the state. 

His business has been mainly direct- 
ed to pine lands and lumber, but his 



other mterests are also very large. Mr 
Walker has always stood in the fore- 
most rank among the business men of 
our state for integrity and honorable 
dealing m every way. 

(Signed) JAS. J . HILL. 

Mr. H. C. Akeley was for many years 
extensively interested with Mr Walk- 
er, in tiniber land in Northern Minne- 
sota. The two letters printed here- 
with show conclusively the high es- 
teem and confidence in which Mr. 
Akeley holds his old partner. 

Minneapolis, Minn., Sept. 11, 1895 

About eight years ago, I entered in- 
T? ^.Partnership agreement with Mr. T. 
B. Walker for the purpose of buying 
and handling pine timber, logs and lum- 
ber. I purchased an undivided half in- 
terest in a large tract that Mr. Walker 
owned, and furnished means to pur- 
chase other tracts; we jointly owned 
between two and three hundred thous- 
and acres. 

Mr. Walker has had the entire man- 
agement of our affairs, using his judg- 
ment in all matters; yet he has careful- 
ly advised me beforehand of all essen- 
tial transactions. I have been entirely 
satisfied with all the purchases, sales 
and all other features of the business; 
he has adjusted and handled all our 
matters with scrupulous fidelity, fair- 
ness and honor; I have never had busi- 
ness relations with anyone that were 
more satisfactory than those with Mr. 
Walker. 

. He stands foremost among the proni- 
ment men of the Northwest as a broad 
sound reliable business man and citi- 
zen. I became acquainted with his past 
record before entering into the business 
relations that we contemplated, as it 
could be satisfactory only in the hands 
ot a partner upon whom I could im- 
plicitly rely both for integrity and abili- 



ty. I can freely testify to his fair deal- 
ings with me. and can unhesitatingly 
say that I am confident that anyone 
who may rely upon his integrity and 
judgment will not he disappointed. 
Verj' respectfully, 

(Signed) H. C. AKELEY. 
Minneapolis. Minn., .-Xug. 4th, 1903. 

In the spring of 1887, I came to Min- 
neapolis, for the purpose of investigat- 
ing the lumber and timber outlook, 
with some view of perhaps embarking 
in the business. Having met Mr. T. 
R. Walker, who seemed anxious to 
have me locate in Minneapolis, the 
question came up as to my being able 
to purchase a tract of timber in Minne- 
sota, which led to negotiations for the 
purchase of one-half interest in a large 
tract, belonging to Mr. Walker, on the 
waters of the upper Mississippi. He 
gave me about the acreage and esti- 
mate of timber on the land, as well as 
the quality of timber, accessibility, etc. 
He gave me a price at which I might 
purchase a half interest. I found upon 
investigation that Mr. Walker's char- 
acter and standing in the community 
where he had lived and engaged in 
business for many years, was such that 
he could be relied upon implicitly in 
his statements and estimates and there- 
upon I accepted his proposition and 
without further information, other than 
his statements, I closed the deal for a 
half interest in a very large tract of 
pine timber, not deeming it necessary 
to e.\aminc or estimate the timber. I 
purchased the undivided one-half inter- 
est in whatever he owned in that terri- 
tory at a certain rate per acre, which 
we agreed upon. We entered into a 
partnership under the firm name of 
Walker & Akeley, and have since been 
engaged in cutting and marketing the 
timber and in the purchase of addition- 
al lands, which we made from time to 
time, whenever oportunity offered to 
add to our possessions. 

As I entered into other deals which 
occupied my time and attention the 
business has been conducted under Mr. 
Walker's management, during these 
years. Having cut and marketed a 
large proportion of this timber up to 
the present time, I can say that all the 
estimates and statements made by Mr. 
Walker in regard to the timber, have 
been fully and completely verified. His 
son, Mr. Willis Walker, has been highly 
satisfactory to me, as being ably man- 
aged and in a way eminently satisfac- 
tory to me. My interests have been 
cared for and protected in all ways by 
Mr. Walker and his son and Mr. Kline, 
who was employed by us in looking 
after the logging contracts. Not only 
has everything run along successful- 
ly from a general business point of 
view, but the personal relations exist- 
ing between us have always been most 



pleasant and agreeable and highly sat- 
isfactory to me. 

(Signed) H. C. AKELEY. 



In 1889 Mr. Walker visited several 
European countries. William K. Mer- 
riam, then Governor of Minnesota, -. ol- 
untarily supplied Mr. Walker with the 
following credential: 

St. Paul, March 6th, 1889. 
To whomsoever this letter may be pre- 
sented: 

It gives me great pleasure to com- 
mend Mr. T. B. Walker, of the City 
of Minneapolis, State of Minnesota, 
United States of America, who is now 
traveling in Europe, as a gentleman en- 
titled to the courtesy and unreserved 
confidence of all with whom he may 
come in contact, in business or social 
affairs. 

Mr. Walker is one of the most high- 
ly esteemed citizens of Minneapolis, a 
gentleman widely known throughout 
our State, and one who has been active 
and influential in building up and fos- 
tering its many industries. 

While he has been active in the busi- 
ness world, and has accumulated a vast 
property, he also devotes much time 
and thought to economic, educational, 
and philanthropic matters. 

(Signed) WM. R. MERRIAM, 
Governor of the State of Minnesota, 
United States of America. 



Mr. Walker has been identified with 
many of the largest banking institutions 
of Minneapolis. Mr. Jas. B. Forgan. 
then cashier of the National Bank of 
Commerce and now president of the 
First National Bank of Chicago, sup- 
plied Mr. Walker with the following 
credentials, addressed to their Edin- 
burgh connection: 

Minneapolis, Minn., Feb. 28, 1899. 
The General Manager of the Royal 

Bank of Scotland, 
Edinburgh. 

Dear Sir: This will serve to intro- 
duce Mr. Thomas B. Walker, a valued 
client of this bank, who is traveling in 
Europe for a few months. 

Mr. Walker has been for many years 
a resident of this city. He is a capi- 
talist and a large owner of pine timber 
lands. It gives me great pleasure to 
certify to the high standing and excel- 
lent reputation which he has attained 
wherever known. His character, inte- 
grity and ability are beyond criticism, 
and his wealth and financial condition 
are such as to entitle him to the very 
highest commercial credit. 

I would bespeak for Mr. Walker 
your considerate attention, and assure 
you that any favor shown him will be 
worthily bestowed and fully appreciat- 
ed by me. Very respectfully, 

(Signed) JAS. B. FORGAN, 

Cashier. 




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®te Mimiieji|j0li^ Sfibmw 



MINNEAPOLIS, SUNDAY, OCTOBBK 25, 1903. 



AN ILLUSTRIOUS MINNEAPOLITAN, THE HONORABLE 
THOMAS B. WALKER. 



Business Man, Financier, Philanthropist, Author and Art Connoiseur. 

Walker would very jirobably be left un- 
der the impression that he had been 
listening to a literary man or philoso- 
pher. While Mr. Walker ranks fore- 
most among the business men of the 
entire Northwest, his mind is too broad 
to be confined to his business alone and 
is a vast storehouse of all knowledge 
useful to humanity. And this fund of 
knowledge has been accumulated by 
him despite great difficulties; while his 
success has been won while working 
for the highest interests of his home, 
town and state. 

On the first day of February, 1840 
a baby boy was born to Piatt Bayliss 
Walker and Anstis Barlow Walker, in 
Xenia, Green county, Ohio. Two other 
children had come before, and a short 
time later two more. The baby was 
named Thomas Barlow Walker, after 
his mother's brother, Hon. Thomas 
Barlow, a prominent New Yorker. Two 
of his mother's brothers were members 
of the bar and served with distinction as 
judges. 

One of them was Judge Thomas Bar- 
low, of Canastota, N. Y., the other Piatt 
Walker, the father of young Thomas 
Barlow Walker, was a descendant of 
early settlers in this country from Eng- 
land. At this time he was engaged in 
business at Xenia, and prospering; but 
in a few years his adventurous spirit 
led him to undertake a trip to the newly 
discovered gold fields of California, and 
he embarked all his capital in this ven- 
ture. 

Fitting out a train of goods and a 
company of forty-nine travelers he start- 
ed across the plains in 1849. Misfortune 
soon overtook the party, the dread chol- 
era having made its appearance among 
them. As soon as the men grew aware 
of this, those who were still well de- 
serted the party, with the exception of 
Walker, who stayed with his men, nurs- 
ing and relieving them as well as he 
could. But he also was seized with the 
disease, and died by the wayside at 
Warrcnsburg, Mo. 

His partner went ahead with the re- 
mainder of the party, and upon his ar- 
rival in the gold camps disposed of the 
goods at immense profits. The thank- 



There are few cities that can boast 
of as many men among its best citizens 
who stand as mile posts along the road 
to business success, as can Minneapolis. 
The public is familiar with many of 
their names, and their deeds speak for 
them even outside of the city. The 
lives of these men, their standing, and 
their manner of living speak for them, 
and mark them as guides to which the 
young men look as the type of coveted 
success. 

Among this group of men of Minne- 
apolis, T. B. Walker stands out prom- 
inently, as one of the most striking 
personalities, illustrating what push, en- 
ergy and determination can do for a 
young man even in the face of often 
adverse circumstances. It is not saying 
more than the fair truth, to say that Mr. 
Walker in his quiet way has probably 
made himself known over a wider ter- 
ritory than any of the men of active 
life in the city. His keen business acu- 
men has called him to almost every 
place of interest in the Northwest seek- 
ing business adventure, and that alone 
would have made him known to the 
Pacific coast. But, added to that, there 
has always been a touch of philosophy 
in the make-up of Mr. Walker, that has 
made him rise above the purely business 
man and put him among the brighter 
minds that always breed respect, even 
where not always understood. 

Mr. Walker is what would have been 
called in the old Anglo-Saxon days a 
homely man. That term, in its original, 
was the highest compliment that could 
be paid to humanity. Those who know 
him now always have when in his 
presence that feeling of comfort that 
always comes with the well balanced 
mind and for which there is always an 
answering respect. Personal contact 
with him is wholesome, and his public 
life has been productive of so much 
good that when Mr. Walker cares to 
mingle in affairs of civic life his words 
are invariably heeded by every element, 
and the modern local toiler for public 
weal weighs well his opinions, that 
are always sought after in crucial mo- 
ments. 

A stranger conversing with Mr. 



less partner never made any returns to 
the widow and children, and was never 
heard from again. 

The boy who has since won recogni- 
tion among men was but nine years of 
age, and adversity stared the whole 
family in the face. The excellent moth- 
er never gave up hope for one instant, 
but set out to give her children the best 
education possible. It was hard times 
for a while, and Thomas helped as well 
as he could by selling papers, cutting 
wood, doing odd jobs in the stores. It 
was very much in evidence, however, 
that when he undertook to pick berries 
or do similar work he would hire other 
boys to work for him and pay them a 
certain amount for each quart picked. 
He seldom failed to realize a profit 
upon his enterprises. 

When the lad was sixteen the family 
moved to Berea, a town a few miles out 
of Cleveland, Ohio, to be near Baldwin 
University, where Thomas hoped to 
complete his education. But these 
hopes were never fully realized, as the 
scarcity of money compelled him to go 
to work. For a while he clerked in 
a store. 

With the little money he had saved 
he entered college, expecting to work 
his way through. Once he bought a 
piece of timber on speculation, and 
hired fellow students to help him cut 
the timber. This venture yielded some 
returns, but not enough to enable him 
to complete his course, and shortly 
afterwards he accepted an offer from 
Mr. Hulet to go on the road and sell 
Berea grindstones. Berea grindstones 
had never sold so well before young 
Walker went out with them and orders 
for them came in thick and fast. But all 
the time during which he traveled he 
carried two grips with him; one con- 
tained his wardrobe; the other — and it 
was by far the heavier — held his books, 
which he studied at every opportunity. 

Such was his diligence that he found 
time to keep up with his classmates, 
and when the examinations came at the 
end of the school year, he always stood 
at the top. During his whole course at 
college he could only afford time for 
one term in the year; yet he was so 
earnest in his endeavors to learn that he 
was not content with acquiring all the 
knowledge which the text books con- 
veyed, but read and understood as well 
every work on the subject which he 
could obtain. He excelled particularly 
in the higher branches of mathematics; 
Newton's Principia, Astronomy, Chem- 
istry and other kindred subjects found 
a devoted adherent in the young man. 

In 1869, when he was nineteen years 
old, he undertook a contract which 
would have presented insurmountable 
difficulties to even an old, experienced 
business man. He was then selling 
grindstones at Paris, 111., where the 



Terre Haute & St. Louis Railroad Com- 
pany were engaged in building their 
line. Without friends, without capital, 
without credit at the local bank, he 
took up a contract to supply the rail- 
road with cross ties and other lumber. 
He obtained credit at the bank, bought 
timber lands, built boarding camps for 
his crews and soon had things booming. 
Prospects were bright and his profits 
would have been very considerable, in 
view of the fact that his only capital 
when he started was plenty of nerve 
and self-reliance, but at the end of 
eighteen months the railroad company 
failed, and he w^s left with but a tri- 
fling fraction of what he had earned. 

With a few hundred dollars which he 
had saved, he returned home, where he 
began teaching school. In this voca- 
tion, as in everything which he ever un- 
dertook, he was successful. 

The war of the Rebellion having 
broken up the school at Berea and 
paralyzed business, young Walker hav- 
ing become a member of an artillery 
company waited for several weeks to 
get into camp in Cleveland. Having 
failed to secure admission to the com- 
pany, it became necessary to secure 
employment and for this purpose he 
went West through Michigan and Wis- 
consin. Having applied to the presi- 
dent of the board of regents of the 
state university of Wisconsin for the 
position of assistant teacher in mathe- 
matics which the president found him 
fully competent to fill, and while he 
waited for the decision of the board he 
went West to McGregor, Iowa, and 
there having met J. M. Robinson, of 
Minneapolis, who gave him a glowing 
account of the new town of Minneapo- 
lis "ten miles above St. Paul," he decid- 
ed to come to Minnesota, in order to 
engage in a surveying enterprise with 
Mr. George B. Wright, of Minneapolis. 
Having arrived here and met Mr. 
Wright, he engaged to go on the gov- 
ernment survey. Soon after starting 
from Minneapolis towards the frontier, 
Mr. Walker received the appointment 
of assistant professor of mathematics 
in the University of Wisconsin, but had 
engaged for the surveying work, and 
refused to change his decision. Thus 
it would seem that Minnesota has, 
through an incident of the meeting 
with Mr. Robinson, acquired the life 
citizenship of Mr. Walker. 

He came up the river from Iowa by 
steamboat, and then traveled over the 
only nine miles of railroad in Minne- 
sota to Minneapolis. 

He had been in the town only an 
hour when he engaged with George B. 
Wright to go on a surveying trip for 
the United States government. They 
started out in a few days, Wright run- 
ning the compass while Walker was 
chain man. One day Wright asked 



Walker to run the compass, and when 
he saw the professional way in which 
his request was obeyed he changed the 
order of things and after that Walker 
was compass-man while Wright, the 
employer, cleared underbrush and car- 
ried the chain. Before the purpose for 
which the expedition had gone out 
was completed, Indian outbreaks drove 
the party into Fort Ripley for pro- 
tection, where the small garrison gladly 
welcomed the addition of sixteen men. 
Walker made his way back to Minne- 
apolis. 

During the remainder of the summer 
he worked on the survey of the St. Paul 
& Pacific railroad; and when winter 
came he rented desk room in the office 
of L. M. Stewart, a prominent attorney, 
where he devoted his time to further 
studies. When he left there in the 
spring to go with a surveying party on 
the St. Paul & Duluth railroad, Stewart, 
who was very scant usually in his en- 
comia, complimented him in the high- 
est words of praise on his diligence. 

Late in the fall of 1863 Mr. Walker 
returned to his Ohio home, where he 
was united in marriage to Miss Harriet 
G. Hulet, daughter of his former em- 
ployer, the ceremony being performed 
by Rev. John Wheeler, D. D., president 
of the Baldwin University, where both 
had been educated. Dr. Wheeler was 
a brother-in-law of the bride. The 
couple remained in Berea until spring, 
Mr. Walker putting in his time on his 
books, and then returned to Minneapo- 
lis, which has ever since been their 
home. 

The result of that union, friends of 
Mr. and Mrs. Walker know. Those 
who have the entree to the spacious 
home realize how adapted to each other 
were the couple then united. The at- 
mosphere of the home today seems to 
be that very quieting influence that 
arises from the natural consequences of 
the environment of books and pictures, 
lessons and lectures, and the tastes that 
gathered such surroundings together. 
During the early years of their married 
life Mr. Walker's business kept him 
much away from home, and the young 
wife was placed early in full charge of 
the domestic enginery. In those days 
money did not go far; the new Minne- 
apolis was not burdened with wealth 
and the men owed much of their suc- 
cess or failure to their helpmates. But 
it was during those strenuous times 
that young people were tried out and 
formed the base for future success 

In 1868, Mr. Walker formed a com- 
bination with Levi Butler and Howard 
W. Mills to exploit the lumber regions. 
Men laughed at the thought of han- 
dling the timber in the country which 
Mr. Walker proposed, but in his earnest- 
ness convinced these two men and they 
threw their money in with the experi- 



ence which Mr. Walker had gained 
while on his surveying expeditions, the 
profits to be divided, share and share 
alike. The enterprises which the new 
firm undertook were all worked out un- 
der the personal supervision of Mr. 
Walker. He examined every piece of 
land taken up, and knew the exact value 
of each acre of property. Camps were 
located and logs were cut and driven to 
market. From this beginning the firm 
of Butler, Mills & Walker grew up and 
flourished. The withdrawal of Mills on 
account of ill health changed the name 
of the firm to Butler & Walker. Mr. 
Walker afterwards associated himself 
with Major George A. Camp, and they 
purchased the old Pacific Mills which 
burned down in 1880, but were rebuilt 
later. In the meantime mills went up 
at Crookston and Grand Forks, North 
Dakota. 

Those who have followed Mr. Walker 
closely say that the foundation of his 
great success was a basic principle of 
new business methods originating with 
him, together with an unswerving busi- 
ness integrity. He made it a point that 
in his own mind his word would be as 
good as his bond, and it did not take 
long to impress others with that same 
belief. His shrewdness was never bet- 
ter exemplified than it was only a short 
time ago, when the great Western coun- 
try began to develop, while at the same 
time the Minnesota pine forests were 
on the wane. In 1889, Mr. Walker be- 
gan investigating the timber lands of 
the Pacific coast. Having examined 
very extensively the timber of Wash- 
ington, Oregon and California, he be- 
gan purchasing timber lands in Califor- 
nia about 1896 or 1897. He chose as 
the most desirable the immense sugar 
and yellow pine timber of the upper 
Sierra Nevada Mountains, where he has 
become the owner of what is regarded 
as the finest tract of timber lands in the 
world. When he began purchasing, it 
was thought to be a venturesome un- 
dertaking until the facts became known 
as to the quality and quantity of the 
timber and its accessibility, as various 
railway lines are anxious to extend into 
the timber, which will make of his hold- 
ings perhaps the mose desirable lumber 
plants in the world. The lumbermen of 
California, as well as those of Minne- 
sota, are in general agreed upon this 
point. 

At the present time Mr. Walker gives 
most of his time and attention to his 
Pacific coast timber deals and the vari'- 
our city enterprises and public mat- 
ters which he looks after to considera- 
ble extent. He and his sons and Mr. 
Charles B. March are the owners and 
managers of the Red River Lumber 
Company, with mills formerly at Grand 
Forks and Crookston, but now having 
extensive plants at the town of Akeley, 



a little west of Leech Lake, in northern 
Minnesota, where the unusual condition 
prevails of running the sawmill sum- 
mer and winter, day and night, which 
is to say the least, quite unusual if not 
entirely exceptional. 

The extensive city market and com- 
mission district of Minneapolis has been 
built up by Mr. Walker and constitutes 
one of the most important enterprises 
in the city, as it has no superior in the 
country, and has placed Minneapolis 
the third or fourth city in the United 
States in the extent of its commission 
business in vegetables, fruit and dairy 
products and miscellaneous provisions. 
The business located there surpasses 
that transacted in any other city in the 
United States, with the exception, per- 
haps, of only two — Chicago and New 
York. 

The Land and Investment Company, 
which built up St. Louis Park, and has 
added very materially to the suburban 
business of the city, together with many 
business enterprises located within the 
city, have derived substantial benefit 
and assistance from Mr. Walker. He 
has probably expended more money for 
the development of Minneapolis by far 
than any other citizen. He organized 
the Business Men's Union, which for a 
number of years was very helpful in 
attracting capital and attention to Min- 
neapolis and building up its industries. 
Mr. Walker is the managing partner 
of the extensive logging firm of Walker 
& Akeley, who have handled perhaps 
larger quantities of logs than any other 
firm. The origin of this partnership 
came about in the following manner: 
In 1887 Mr. Akeley came to Minne- 
apolis with a view of investigating the 
outlook for a location in the lumber 
business. Having met Mr. Walker and 
having known of his large timber in- 
terests, opened up a negotiation for the 
purchase of a half interest in the largest 
tract of timber lands that has perhaps 
ever changed hands in Minnesota. Mr. 
Walker gave him a price and Mr. Ake- 
ley told him that he would let him 
know the next day as to what he would 
do about purchasing and paying for it. 
The question was, with Mr. Akeley, as 
to when and how he could pay, having 
made up his mind the day before that 
he would make the purchase. Mr. 
Walker accepted the terms of payment, 
the deal was closed inside of two days, 
all but making up the papers, which 
took considerable time, a large payment 
was made in cash, and when Mr. Ake- 
ley was asked what he proposed to do 
about examining the land, he affirmed 
that he did not care to either examine 
the lands or the titles, but having in- 
vestigated the character and standing 
of Mr. Walker, was willing to make 
this largest of all transactions in the 
lumber way in the Northwest, with 



only the statements of Mr. Walker to 
rely upon for the value of the property 
which he was purchasing, making one 
of the most exceptional land deals and 
business transactions that can be found 
in the history of business affairs. 

Mr. Akeley now has to certify, "Hav- 
ing cut and marketed a large propor- 
tion of this timber up to the present 
time, I can say that all the estimates 
and statements made by Mr. Walker 
in regard to the timber have been fully 
and completely verified. His manage- 
ment of the business has been eminent- 
ly satisfactory to me. My interests 
have been protected in all ways by Mr. 
Walker and his sons." 

Although Mr. Walker's financial suc- 
cess has been phenomenal and he is 
classed among the most substantial 
men in the Northwest, it is hardly here 
that his strength of character is most 
conspicuous. He has been first and 
foremost among those who believe that 
common humanity is entitled to more 
than it is getting; and while what he 
has done is called charity, he does not 
believe that he has done any more than 
any other man in his position ought 
or should. For instance, when our Cen- 
tral Market burned a few years ago, 
leaving a whole block in area filled in 
in large part with all manner of vege- 
table produce and provisions that de- 
manded immediate removal to prevent 
its becoming a nuisance, Mr. Walker 
directed Mr. Gorham, his real estate 
man and building manager, to employ 
a large force of men immediately and 
remove this waste material from under 
the great mass of fallen bricks and 
stone. He directed that good wages 
should be paid. The next day, upon 
inquiry as to the wages that the men 
were promised, he was told it was a 
dollar a day, and he then asked if his 
manager thought that men with fam- 
ilies could live on a dollar a day. The 
reply was that he did not think that it 
was a relevant question as the employ- 
er was not supposed to be responsible 
for the maintaining of the men's fam- 
ilies, and with the further statement 
that Elevator A, which had just burned 
a few days before, almost within sight 
of the City Market, had three hundred 
men at work who were receiving only 
eighty cents a day, and hundreds more 
were seeking employment at that rate, 
so that the dollar a day was higher 
than the customary wages. But Mr. 
Walker insisted that the pay should be 
a dollar and a quarter a day, and that 
contractors who were digging founda- 
tions for commission houses should 
also be required in their contracts to 
pay a dollar and a quarter a day to 
their men. and the contractors charged 
extra price on this account. 

Minneapolis is largely indebted to Mr, 
Walker for its fine Public Library, 



ranging about fourth or fifth among the 
cities of the United States in its cir- 
culation. A short time after he arrived 
in Minneapoh's. he joined the Athe- 
naeum Library Association. Having 
found a couple of memberships at a 
specially low price, he purchased the 
two, one for himself and one for his 
wife. He worked in this way for many 
years, drifting towards a more liberal 
policy and larger usefulness, until final- 
ly, in large part through his instrumen- 
tality, the library act was passed, es- 
tablishing the Public Library, and to 
place within the books of the Athe- 
naeum as a permanent home, as well as 
the art gallery under the management 
of the art society and museum of the 
Academy of Science. Mr. Walker has 
been re-elected president annually for 
the past eighteen years from the date 
of the formation of the board. Mr. 
Walker has been the principal patron of 
the Academy of Science, having done 
more than others to develop and build 
up the collection and maintain the in- 
terests in the scientific work of society. 
From various remarks and pointers 
given out by Mr. Walker, it has been 
known that he has intended at some 
time to build in Minneapolis an art in- 
stitute and museum. 

It has been requently remarked by 
workingmen and amongst the socialists 
and discontended element that if all 
employers were as inclined to use em- 
ployes well there would be no social- 
ism or necessity for strikes, as Mr. 
Walker has never had a strike in his 
extensive handling of men, as his busi- 
ness interests have required the help 
of thousands of men in conducting his 
enterprises, and every one who has been 
with him once is glad to return to his 
employ again. He has the esteem and 
good will of all classes, and it is a 
partial key to his success, as his busi- 
ness flourishes and develops largely 
through the good will and patronage of 
others. 

Many of the boys who came out of 
the state reform school have good cause 
to remember the name of Mr. Walker, 
as that of the man who befriended them 
when they were in that institution, of 
which he was a trustee for many years. 
His services on the board were highly 
appreciated by the inmates and his as- 
sociates. 

Mr. Walker built his residence at 803 
Hennepin avenue in 1874, where he has 
since resided. There he brought his 
mother, whose early training had been 
such a help to him. He never forgot 
what he owed her and always took care 
of her, giving her his love and assisting 
her financially from his earliest boy- 
hood. She lived there happily until her 
end in 1883, and saw eight children 
come to her son and daughter-in-law. 
Of these seven are living. One son 



passed away at eighteen years of age, 
after a short illness. The affection of 
the members of the family for each 
other is beyond the ordinary, and the 
Walker homestead is one of the hap- 
piest of homes. Mr. Walker's private 
ofifice is in the library of the home, 
where a large table covered with papers 
of all sorts serves as his desk. And yet 
all these papers are not business docu- 
ments. There is not a charitable insti- 
tution in the Northwest that cannot 
number Mr. Walker among its most 
liberal contributors. There is not a 
public rneeting held at which he does 
not receive an invitation to attend and 
speak. Pamphlets, religious, sociolog- 
ical, political, hygienic, sound, many of 
which have been compiled by this lum- 
ber king. His writings are much in de- 
mand, as he has a marvelously clear, 
crisp and concise way of putting things 
that appeals particularly to every lover 
of good writing. What he says are 
facts, and there is no getting away from 
his arguments. The Methodist church 
counts his writings among their most 
valuable helps; the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association has circulated his 
works. As an exponent of the doctrines 
of the Republican party he has been 
called upon time and again to help 
along with his pen the good cause, and 
the clear manner in which he handles 
the most profound questions has been 
a revelation to politicians. No one, a 
few years ago, expected that the great 
lumber merchant was paying any atten- 
tion to politics, until he began to fulmi- 
nate his truths and carried consterna- 
tion to the ranks of the opposition. His 
knowledge of political economy is pro- 
found, and not only that of this coun- 
try, but of all times and all places. 

Mr. Walker believes firmly that every 
man should have a strong personal in- 
terest in the good of the country, and 
that every one should pay the same at- 
tention which he gives to his own busi- 
ness to it. 

In personal appearance Mr. Walker 
is a well proportioned man of a trifle 
over the average height. His face has 
an exceedingly kindly appearance; that 
of a man who could well be entrusted 
with anything, and who would faith- 
fully abide by the trust. Were it not 
for a tinge of gray in his hair and 
beard, no one would believe that he 
was over forty years old, as he has the 
active movements of a young man and 
every gesture shows the vigor of the 
early prime of life. 

Tine walls of the library in which he 
has his office are lined with book cases 
which groan under the weight of books 
fit to make the heart of a bookworm 
full of envy. Works on all subjects by 
the best authors; religion, art, science, 
poetry, fiction, philosophy, and every 
possible subject are among them. They 



are not there for looks only, as their 
owner is better acquainted with their 
contents than with their exteriors. His 
love for sound reading was acquired 
from Father Blake, an old Catholic 
priest. Father Blake saw Mr. Walker, 
when he was a boy reading stories of 
travel and adventure. The good man 
gave him books worthier of his atten- 
tion, and pointed a course of reading 
which he knew would be of advantage. 
Besides his valuable library, there is 
in the house a collection of paintings, 
and bronzes and rugs, said to be the 
finest private collection in the world. 
A gallery of six large rooms accom- 
modates on its walls gems from the 
hands of the world's most famous mas- 
ters of painting. In the bronze room 
are valuable Chinese and Japanese 
bronzes, ivory carvings, glassware from 
all over the world. Most men would 
keep their magnificent works of art 
under lock and key, and admit only 
their most intimate friends. But this 
man is of different stamp. Absolute- 
ly without a selfish thought, he throws 
the door of his home wide open to the 
world, and invites all to come and en- 
joy these things with him. The gallery 
has become a mine for tourists,_and none 
leave Minneapolis without going there. 
His enjoyment comes entirely from the 
pleasure which he can give others with 
the means at his command. Besides 
this, he has loaned a part of his collec- 
tion to the public, and the library build- 
ing now contains them. The remark- 
able feature of his art collection is that 
by common consent of all the best 
judges from all parts of the world it 
stands alone in being without a single 



commonplace or mediocre painting. 
Every picture on the wall is of the 
highest type of the painter's art, and 
worthy of a place in any collection in 
the world. In this respect it is different 
from all other galleries, as any one is 
challenged to point to either a public or 
private gallery in this country or Eu- 
rope that does not contain unworthy 
paintings on its walls. Mr. Walker is 
looked upon by the art dealers as the 
only one who makes no mistakes in the 
selection, as even the committees of 
a number of different judges in the 
public galleries make repeated mistakes 
by selecting large proportions of paint- 
ings that are not of interest and of high 
art value. 

Another token of his consideration 
for others is in the benches which are 
set on the sidewalk around the grounds 
of his home. There weary pedestrians 
may sit and rest themselves comfort- 
ably under the shade of beautiful trees. 

The money which he has given away 
in charity will not be known. He has 
always obeyed the Biblical injunction, 
and never let his left hand know that 
which the right hand did. How many 
poor people have been relieved in their 
anxieties by him, both with cheering 
word and assistance, how many saved 
through his help, will never be counted. 
Every public movement has received his 
help, wether it was the Young Men's 
Christian Association, in whose coun- 
cils he stands high, or a movement on 
the part of the labor element to build 
a hall. He has labored hard for the 
cause of education, and displayed an 
active interest in the educational pro- 
gress of the world. 



APPLAUD MILLIONAIRE. — SOCIALISTS HEAR 
LUMBERMAN. 



T. B. Walker Addresses Them on "Fallacies of Socialism." 



St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 18, 1903. 



T. B. Walker, the millicMiaire lumber- 
man, yesterday addressed a meeting of 
the Socialists in Holcomb's hall, 45 
Fourth street south. He spoke on the 
"Fallacies of Socialism," and was re- 
plied to by Rev. Carl D. Thompson, of 
Denver, Colo. 

The audience was composed almost 
entirely of local members of the Social- 
ist party. They accorded to Mr. Walk- 
er as close and respectful attention, if 
not so much applause, as to Rev. 
Thompson, with whom they were in 
enthusiastic sympathy, and who is gifted 
with rare eloquence and ingenuity in 



stating the doctrine in which all present 
believed. 

Both speakers talked at great length, 
the meeting lasting from 3 to 5:30 
o'clock. Each marshaled statistics to 
the support of his position, the quality 
and quantity of which showed profound 
reading and intelligent thinking, though 
from different standpoints. 

Mr. Walker was warmly applauded at 
the close of his talk. The chairman, w 
thanking him for appearing, said that 
Mr. Walker was the only rich citizen in 
Minneapolis who threw open to the peo- 
ple the art treasures his money had 
purchased. 



THE NEW YORK HERALD, 



NEW YORK, SUNDAY. MARCH 1, 1903 -„„.„•? 



Public Art Gallery in Private House. 



Many rich men have their hobbies. 
With some it is the mania for giving 
away libraries; with others it is a desire 
to acquire a baronial country estate. 
With T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis, 
"the Pine King of the West," it is the 
collection of fine paintings. Ever since 
he was a boy, with money enough to 
buy one painting, his craving for fine 
art has grown, until now, at the age of 
fifty-two, he has the finest, the largest 
and the most select gallery in the Uni- 
ted States. 

And with it all he is not selfish. Al- 
though the gallery is in a wing of his 
private residence, at the corner of Hen- 
nepin avenue and Eighth street, and 
the only entrance to it is through his 
front door, the gallery is open to the 
public six days in the week, and all 
who ring his bell and ask to see the 
old masters receive not only permission 
from the white aproned maid who an- 
swers the ring, but also a catalogue as 
well. 

This private collection is by far and 
away better than that furnished by the 
Public Library Gallery of the city, and 
were it not for the fifty or more paint- 
ings which belong to Mr. Walker, and 
which hang in this gallery as a loan, 
the city's display of art would indeed 
be meagre. 

Thomas Barlow Walker is one of the 
wealthiest and most influential citizens 
of Minneapolis. His career is a shin- 
ing example to all boys of moderate 
circumstances who are trying to make 
their way in the world. He was born 
at Xenia, Ohio, in 1840, and worked his 
way through Baldwin University. When 
he went to Minneapolis, in 1862, he was 
a surveyor on the St. Paul and Duluth 
Railway. While driving the road 
through the wilds of the West he be- 
came interested in the pinelands and 
to-day he owns more pine country than 
any other man in America, his interest 
reaching to California— hence his title 
of the "Pine King." 

In the room devoted to old masters 
is one of the few Raphaels in this 
country. It is the portrait of Pope 
Julius II. It was painted by Raphael 
as a study for the portrait now hanging 
in the Pitti Palace. Before Mr. Wal- 
ker acquired it it hung for years in 
the private gallery of Sir Cecil Miles, 
at Leigh Court, England. The canvas 
had been stretched upon a wooden pan- 
el two inches thick, but the wood had 



to be planed down to half an inch on 
account of the honey-combing of the 
worms. 

There are two Rembrandts in this 
room, "The Burgomaster," from the 
collection of Jacob Anthony Van Dam, 
of Dorchert, and "The Burgomaster's 
Wife," a smaller canvas probably a por- 
trait of Rembrandt's mother. A Ru- 
bens, "Madonna and Child," represent- 
ing the Madonna, Christ, and John the 
Baptist, came to the Walker collection 
from the gallery of Lord Norwich. Se- 
bastiano del Piombo's painting of "Vit- 
toria Colonna," Guido Reni's "Cleopa- 
tra's Last Hours' " and Cipriani's "As- 
sumption of the Virgin" are some of 
the examples of the other famous old 
Italian masters which add strength to 
this private collection, but the Napo- 
leon pictures are the ones which many 
persons come to Minneapolis specially 
to see. 

Mr. Walker's "Portrait of Napoleon" 
is by Robert Lefevre. painted in 1810. 
For years it hung in Napoleon's apart- 
ments at Fontainebleau. When in exile 
Napoleon presented it to Field Marshal 
Mortier, who, dying, willed it to his 
nephew. Count de la Grange, from 
whom Mr. Walker's agents secured it. 
As companion pieces are the portraits 
of Josephine, by Lefevre, in 1808, and a 
portrait of Empress Maria Louisa. 
"Napoleon in His Coronation Robes," 
by David, painted in 1805, is one of the 
most striking pictures of the great war 
lord in existence. It was given to Field 
Marshal Davoust by the Emperor, be- 
cause Davoust and he were schoolmates 
at Brienne. 

Landscape Painters. 

The brilliant landscape painters of 
France, Corot. Rousseau, Dupre, Diaz, 
Harpignies, Cazin, Monticelli and the 
animal painters Jacquin, Chagnau, Geri- 
Canet, Vuillefroys, Charles Jacque and 
Aymar Pezant are all represented with 
one or more canvases, but by far the 
most popular is the "Lion," by Rosa 
Bonheur, and "Cattle Resting in the 
Shade," by her talented brother, Auguste 
Bonheur. 

The painting which has done much 
toward creating a hatred for war, the 
famous battle picture, Paul Jazet's 
"Death of Nelson," is another valuable 
canvas on Mr. Walker's walls. It is 
one of the most fearfully real pictures 
known to art. The reeling figure of the 



dying Nelson, supported by the solic- 
itous Hardy; the surgeon, himself 
wounded, and the stalwart negro ending 
his life beside the little white boy 
writhing and shrieking aloud in agony; 
sailors dying on every side, and the 
naked gunners, their hard faces cov- 
ered with sweat and grime, fighting 
steadily against a wall of smoke and 
glare — a caldron of man's hate boiling 
over— a fitting death scene for so great 
a warrior. 

The German painter are also well rep- 
resented in this collection. Signed to 
many canvases, big and little, are to be 
found the names of such men as Adolph 
Schreyer, August Schenk, Schermer, 
Emil Rau, Andreas Achenbach, Wer- 
ner Schuch, Ludwig Knaus, Franz Un- 
terberger, Heinreich, Losson, Lousher- 
berg, Sinkels, Riedel, Hugo Kauffman, 
Van der Venne, and many others. Of 
these artists perhaps the work of Wil- 
helm von Kaulbach remains with you 
most after you have been through the 
gallery. His "Fall of Babel" is an im- 
mense canvas. It was the cartoon for 
the mural painting for Staircase Hall 
in the new Museum at Berlin, and was 
owned for a long time by Sir. James 
Duncan, of London. 

Another painting which served as a 
preliminary canvas for a greater ^work 
is Turner's "Crossing the Brook.'" It 
was the original of the large canvas 
which now hangs in the National Gal- 
lery in London, and it came from the 
collection of Lord Jersey. 

Jean Rosier, the chief conductor of 
the Academy of Malincs, received a 
medal of honor at Antwerp in 1894 for 
his large picture of "King Charles I. 
after the battle of Marston Moor." It 
is one of the chief treasures of Mr. Wal- 
ker's heart. And the "human interest" 
in the picture explains why its present 
owner paid a fabulous price for it and 
holds it dear. The artists selected the 
time when Charles is informed that his 
army is defeated and that Cromwell is 
on the road to London. The King re- 
alizes that the worst is to come. He 
sits like one paralyzed. His dog lays 
his head on his master's knee and tries 
to sympathize with him. Prince Ru- 
pert, Captain Stanly and Minister Oli- 
ver are grouped about the table. An 
officer who has brought the news stands 
in the doorway awaiting an order. 

The American Masterpieces. 

In his search over the entire world 
for paintings Mr. Walker has not for- 
gotten American artists. One is Benja- 
min West's "Lear Discovered in the 
Hut by Gloucester." It is a painting 
highly prized in England and America 
because West was the first great Amer- 
ican artist. The portrait of George 
Washington which is in this gallery is 
bv Rembrandt Peale. Mr. Sutton, of 



the American Art Gallery, has made 
a study of Washington portraits, and 
he says that it is "similar to but better 
than the one hanging in the President's 
room back of the Senate Chamber in 
the Capitol." 

There are two paintings in the Wal- 
ker collection by George Inness, Sr., 
who has been called "the American 
Rousseau," and four by his equally tal- 
ented son. The historical work of art 
by E. Schuselle, "General Jackson Be- 
fore Judge Hall," upon which the ar- 
tist spent ten years in carefully repro- 
ducing the scene so that the characters 
in it would be depicted with all the 
faithfulness of a perfect portrait, is 
one of the chief canvases in the Ameri- 
can room. Edward Moran is represent- 
ed by a packet ship rolling on high 
waves, and Thomas Moran's master- 
piece, "Venice and the Palace of the 
Doges," hangs beside his brother's of- 
ferings. 

J. C. Brewer's "Modern Eve," Weste- 
beek's "Shepherd and Sheep," H. P. 
Smith's "Sunset," Arthur Tait's "Mater- 
nal Solicitude," Robert Minor's "After 
the Storm," Freeman Throp's "Por- 
trait of General Miles," Davis Johnson's 
"A Clearing — Mount Lafayette, N. H.," 
Arthur Parton's "New England Home- 
stead on a Stormy Morning." and Hill's 
"Painting of the City of Minneapolis 
Fifty Years Ago," are some of the 
American moderns to be found in the 
Walker gallery. 



MILLIONAIRE LUMBERMAN 
USED TO SELL GRIND- 
STONES. 



Thomas B. Walker Found in State of 
Minnesota His Calling. 



HE SAW HIS OPPORTUNITY. 



i 



First Jobs of Prominent Men.— No. 6. 



(News, Minneapolis, Minn., Mar. 4, '04.) 

At 19 years of age, Thomas B. Walk- 
er, millionaire lumberman, was a travel- 
ing salesman for a grindstone manufac- 
turer. 

He came all the way from Xenia, 
Ohio, where his father, a humble shoe- 
maker, lived, to Minnesota, to sell his 
wares. 

After he had been in Minnesota a 
short time he realized that the state 
promised larger things than did the 
grindstones of the Buckeye state. His 
eyes were on the Minnesota pine lands. 
They held out to him the future prom- 
ise that he had come to the West in 
search of, and never did he lose sight 
of them. 




T{t>l>ro<liiclioii from plioloursiiili 
I'Nfd to illnsli:i(«' :ir(icl(-N tliiit :i|i 



iken of >lr. 'I'. II. W iilkor in IS!>0. 
-iiroil ill lilt- following |Hil>li<-:ilioii 



>liiiii<-:i|M>li.s 'I'tiiM-N. 
i\ortli>vcstoru Chri.stiiiii \<U< 



SAN FRANCISCX). FRIDAY EVENING. DECEMBER ii. . 1903. 



ONE OF MINNESOTA'S 



PROMINENT CITIZENS. 



One of Minnesota's most prominent 
citizens and a gentleman who is of more 
than considerable interest to-day to the 
lumbermen of California is stopping at 
the Occidental Hotel. We refer to 
Thomas B. Walker, of Minneapolis, the 
well-known lumberman, philanthropist 
and art connoisseur, who some time ago 
purchased a large tract of timber land 
of about 200,000 acres, in the vicinity of 
Mt. Shasta, and who rumor credits with 
still larger and more, at the present 
time, accessible purchases. With his 
Eastern holdings and his California ac- 
quirements, he is the owner of the 
greatest amount of pine timber, yet un- 
cut, in the country, and it may be of 
interest to many in California to trace 
the development of the lumber king, 
the keen art critic and the man of af- 
fairs of to-day from the poor boy, 
orphaned at the age of nine, whose 
father's aim was to be one of the argo- 
nauts of California. The aim was cor- 
rect, the bow strung, but the arrow 
fell short, the hand of the grim reaper, 
Death, intercepting it, and Piatt Wal- 
ker never got nearer California than 
Warrensburg, Missouri, where he died 
of cholera. 

So at an early age Thomas Walker 
had to work, not to work to amuse him- 
self or to keep himself out of mischief, 
but to work to keep away that gray 
wolf of starvation, and right manfully — 
or boyfully, to be correct — did he do 
his stint. Schools were scarce, and he 
had not much time to attend them, but 
when only sixteen he entered Baldwin 
University at Berea, Ohio, going there 
a term at a time and working as a 
traveling salesman between terms. As 
a salesman must carry samples, one 
arm was occupied by the valise which 
held them, but the other carried a 
satchel, containing commodities not sa- 
lable, but of infinite value to him, and 
whose perusal and following blazed a 
pathway for him through life. The sec- 
ond valise was filled with reference and 
textbooks, whose contents he thorough- 
ly assimilated and whose treasures of 
art and science have borne fruit to his 
material achievements and splendid be- 
neficence to art and literature. 



When only 19 years old he made his 
first entry into the lumber business, get- 
ting out ties and cutting cord-wood for 
a railroad at Paris, 111. The railroad 
scheme failed, and he got nothing for 
his work save experience, which later 
was of great value. He taught school for 
a year and then resumed the traveling 
business, selling grindstones out of 
Berea. In 1862 he first went to Minne- 
apolis, then a mere hamlet, and on his 
arrival engaged in government land sur- 
vey work, about three years of which 
and one year on the survey of the St. 
Paul & Duluth Railway gave him a 
thorough knowledge of the timber 
country, and he decided to engage in the 
pine land business. From this small be- 
ginning came his great success, and he 
in time owned and operated mills in all 
parts of northern Minnesota, being at 
various times in partnership with some 
of the most prominent men of the 
state. 

But Mr. Walker has for years been 
two-sided; one side the keen man of 
business, the promoter of large enter- 
prises, the builder of handsome build- 
ings and the layer-out of suburban 
places; the other the artistic and phil- 
anthropic man, by whose instrumental- 
ity the Minneapolis public library was 
organized, whose art gallery, one of the 
finest in the world, is thrown open to 
the general public and the collector of 
a library replete with works on science, 
theology, political economy and history, 
whose art reference portion is perhaps 
unequaled in the United States. 

His art gallery, which represents the 
accumulation and work of years, con- 
tains a collection of the finest paintings 
from the hands of the old masters and 
the leaders of the modern schools, 
bronzes and other works of art. Some 
seventy or eighty of his paintings are 
hung in the gallery of the public library, 
but the majority are in his private gal- 
lery connected with his residence on 
Hennepin avenue, Minneapolis. Here 
are found some of the best productions 
of such masters as Corot, Rousseau, 
Rosa Bonheur, Diaz, Turner, Van 
Dyke, Peele, Rembrandt, Guido, Reni, 
Rubens, Von der Heist, Pourbus, 
Mieseelt, Raphael, Sebastian del Piom- 



bo, Sir William Baehy, Ofrie, Hogarth, 
Sir Thomas Lawrence, David, Lc Fevrc, 
Bougereau, Scheyer, Jacque, Breton, 
Madam Demont, and many other artists 
of fame. 

He was many years president of the 
Minneapolis Fine Arts Society and vice- 
president of the National Art Society, 
and has been continuously president 
since eighteen years of the Public Li- 
brary Board, and it was through his 
instrumentality that it was organized. 

Politically Mr. Walker is a consist- 
ent Republican, and cast his first vote 
for Abraham Lincoln. During the last 



two Presidential campaigns he delivered 
a number of able addresses and wrote 
extensively on the issues involved. 

Just in the prime of life, as he was 
born in 1840, happily married, with sons 
who can lessen his business cares, hav- 
ing amassed a considerable fortune by 
hard work and good judgment, Mr. 
Walker can afford to rest from business, 
and with the assistance of his very 
capable wife, who is active in all move- 
ments for the elevation of her sex, de- 
vote more of his time to the improve- 
ment of the mind and the cultivation of 
the artistic taste of mankind. 



PRESENT SYSTEM O 



T. B. Walker Discusses Basis of Industrial Development Before 

M. E. Pastors. He Says the Systems Proposed by 

Socialists are Visionary and Impractical. 



Minneapolis Journal. April 26, 1903. 



"The Essential Basis of Social and In- 
dustrial Development" was discussed 
this morning by T. B. Walker before 
local Methodist clergymen at the Hen- 
nepin Avenue M. E. church, in an ad- 
dress which several of the pastors de- 
scribed as "the finest, most satisfactory 
review of the subject that they had ever 
heard." 

Mr. Walker compared the present 
competitive, or wage system of society 
with the systems proposed by the social- 
ists. The socialists, in his belief, were 
led astray by "a theory, an imaginative 
system." "All experiments in social- 
ism," he contended, "have shown that 
the plan of living together in harmony 
and common ownership of property has 
proved to be a visionary theory that 
does not work in practice." He pointed 
out the failure of various communistic 
experiments. lie described his own ob- 
servations of life among the American 
Indians, showing that the practice of 
dividing all property among the mem- 
bers of the tribe discouraged individual 
ambition. Two Indians that he had 
known worked hard in cultivating and 
gathering a largo crop of potatoes. 
Other nicnibcrs of the tribe that had 
done none of the work promply claimed 
and divided the potatoes, preventing the 
owners from selling the product of 
their toil. These two Indians raised no 
more potatoes. 



History has demonstrated the fail- 
ures of collectivism under autocratic or 
democratic government, in Turkey and 
Russia as well as in Greece and Rome. 
"And yet," commented Mr. Walker, "the 
drift of affairs in this country is along 
towards those same lines that will bring 
misfortunes in its train." 

The existing system might not be 
perfect, "but at least it makes the whole 
world better off than the world would 
be under any possible system of social- 
ism." 

Moreover, the evils of life are not 
caused by the wage system, but the 
physical, mental and moral defects of 
individuals. 

Mr. Walker denied the accuracy of 
statistics jiretending to demonstrate that 
capital gets a larger share than labor 
of the price paid for manufactured ar- 
ticles. In the boot and shoe industry, 
for example, it had been said the 
manufacturer received far more in 
proportion than did his employes. 
The truth, insisted Mr. Walker, quoting 
figures, was quite the reverse. The 
workman's proportion was 22 or 23 per 
cent, the manufacturer's only 5 per cent. 

So gratified were the Methodist min- 
isters with Mr. Walker's paper that, on 
their invitation, he agreed to address 
them two weeks hence upon the subject 
of "Trusts." 



TRUE PHILANTHROPISTS 



T. B. Walker and Wife, of Minneapolis, Prominent as Such. 
Mrs. Walker Among the First of Leading Women to Espouse 
and Advocate the Keeley Movement. — How She Startled the 
Delegates at the World's Temperance Congress. Some of 
Mr. Walker's Efforts to Elevate and Educate His Fellowmen. 



Crookston Tribune. 



Among the leading women of the 
United States no one lias worked harder 
and more continuously for the uplifting 
of humanity, and had the satisfaction 
of seeing greater successes than Mrs. 
T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis. She 
enjoys an international fame as a writer 
on social and economic subjects, to 
which she has given many years of 
close study and made successful and 
practical application of her theories. In 
Minnesota she is the acknowledged 
leader of many charitable organizations. 
She was one of the incorporators of the 
Woman's Hospital of Minneapolis, and 
is a practical business woman, who con- 
tributes liberally from her means, her 
time and her intellect for the good of 
others, and is always fearless in sup- 
porting what she considers the right. 

Just when she examined the claims 
of the Keeley Treatment and decided 
to champion it we are not informed, 
but we do know that she must have giv- 
en it a very critcal and careful investi- 
gation prior to November 29, 1892, for 
on that date she read a paper before 
the Woman's Congress, Minneapolis. 
It was entitled "The Proi)er Attitude of 
Christian Temperance Workers Toward 
the Scientific Cure for the Drink Habit." 
Many editions of this have been pub- 
lished in pamphlet form, and the de- 
mand ior it still continues. In this 
she said : 

"The Keeley Cure has been made to 
stand a terrible crossfire and raking of 
doubt, investigation and discussion, as 
was right it should, for black indeed 
would be the heart of any man who 
would promise release to the con- 
demned cajjtive in his cell if he did not 
in very truth possess the means of 
opening up the prison doors. 

"But I take it for granted that this 
subject has now passed the period of 
question and doubt, and that it is admit- 
ted upon all sides that the Keeley 
Treatment does cure the drunkard more 
thoroughly and surely and uniformly 
than any other known method. The 
medical profession were the last to yield 
to the conviction forced upon them; but 
now, thank God, there are too many 
free men walking our streets and too 
many rejoicing wives and children in 



their homes to leave any chance for 
further question." 

Mrs. Walker was successful in having 
the Keeley Rescue Work adopted as 
one of the departments of the Minne- 
sota Non-Partisan Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union, and aided in tiie 
organization of the Woman's Auxiliary 
Keeley League of Minneapolis, which 
has been very successful in moulding 
public opinion and persuading inebri- 
ates to take the treament at the Keeley 
Institute in that city. 

But it was at the World's Temperance 
Congress, held in Chicago, at the same 
time of the Columbian Exposition, that 
Mrs. Walker startled the conservatives 
and electrified the Kceleyites. She read 
a paper entitled, "Dr. Keeley and the 
Temperance Work." It was argument, 
sarcasm and pathos blended. She dissi- 
pated the confusion which existed in the 
minds of many, between the physical 
and the spiritual work for the drunkard. 
In the following words she disproved 
the alleged antagonism to other move- 
ments : 

"No; educational temperance work, ju- 
venile work, evangelistic work, legal 
and literary work stand unaflfected by 
this new departure. It is only on our 
weakest side that we, as temperance 
workers, are approached or aflFected. 
Dr. Kceley's discovery deals with the 
only class whom we have been com- 
paratively helpless to serve or to save. 
No man or woman who has put in any 
considerable time, or gained any consid- 
erable experience, in the effort to save 
men upon whom the drink habit has 
fixed itself, but has been compelled to 
acknowledge that the labor and the re- 
sults are lamentably out of proportion. 
We have talked on, and wept on, and 
prayed on, and failed on, because it was 
the best we could do, and we must do 
something to hold our hope to every 
human being. But as every temperance 
worker will acknowledge, in eflforts for 
the reformation of confirmed drunk- 
ards, failure has been the rule, and suc- 
cess the rare and wonderful exception, 
that has stood out in such bold relief as 
to warrant its being heralded abroad — 
and rightly — as a special providence of 
God. 



"So notoriously has this been the case 
that many Christian men and women, 
nay, thousands in every one of the 
large organizations have for years de- 
clined to assist in any rescue move- 
ments, giving as a reason that preven- 
tion is better than cure, and the educa- 
tion of the young better than the futile 
attempts at the reformation of those 
whose lives are already spoiled, and 
labor in whose behalf is so nearly hope- 
less. 

"In the discovery by Dr. Keeley of a 
scientific cure for the drink habit, or the 
disease of alcoholism, God has supple- 
mented our weakness with His strength. 
He has left us to work upon the 
problem until our better judgment 
has shown us that it is too hard for us, 
and then in our dire extremity has come 
to our rescue. Nor does this differ 
from God's ordinary dealings with the 
children of men. He never does for 
us what is within the reach of our own 
efforts, when we are doing our best. On 
this principle, there is no reason to sup- 
pose that there will ever be a method 
discovered whereby our children will be 
given their temperance education with- 
out effort on our part, or our laws come 
ready-made to our hands, or the pure 
gospel of temperance be superseded 
by any improved dispensation. On 
these lines, God works through human 
agencies, and chooses to call to His aid 
human instrumentalities. On the rescue 
line, also. He has chosen to show us 
that He works through human agencies 
and the use of the materials of His 
creation for the cure of this, as for the 
cure of many other diseases. And is not 
all this in accordance with God's deal- 
ings with His people in all ages? Is it 
not time that He came to the rescue? 
Have not his children cried unto Him 
with an exceeding bitter cry for more 
than the forty years that the Israelites 
wandered in the wilderness? Was He 
not bound by His own inviolable prom- 
ise to make a way for the escape of 
those for whom prayer was so inces- 
santly poured out before His throne, 
when He has said 'Call upon Me in the 
day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, 
and a host of strong promises?" 

In all her good works Mrs. Walker 
has the sympathy and full co-operation 
of her husband, whose character and 
deeds are set forth in the following arti- 
cle from the Progress, of Minneapolis, 
to which we are also indebted for the 
admirable picture of Mr. Walker. — The 
Banner of Gold. 

The article recently published by T. 
B. Walker in the Minneapolis Journal, 
on the financial question, has attracted 
much attention and created favorable 
comment from men of all political par- 
ties. Especially have the people here — 
where Mr. Walker is heavily interested 
— been interested in his writings and 



there has been quite a demand for the 

paper containing his letter. His theory 
is that the only way to stop the drain- 
age of gold from this country, and the 
constant issuing of bonds, is to levy 
a protective tariff sufficient to meet all 
the obligations of the government. — 



CITY GIVES UP RIGHT TO 
REMOVE TRACKS. 



T. B. Walker Tells Council Committee 

What Coming of Butler Bros. 

Means. 

(News, Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 8, "06.) 

What Walker said: "If you include 
in your ordinance, granting the Minne- 
apolis & St. Louis railroad a sidetrack 
to the building, the provision that the 
council shall at any time have the 
power to order the track removed. But- 
ler Bros, will not come and I will im- 
mediately order all work on the building 
to cease. I am not putting my money 
in the building for the investment; I 
am doing it for the good of the city, 
and I would rather write my check for 
$50,000 today than go on with the work. 

The council committee on railroads 
this morning saved the big mercantile 
house of Butler Bros, to the city. 

T. B. Walker, millionaire lumberman 
and one of the best known men in the 
Northwest, was the principal figure at 
the meeting. 

When the council two weeks ago, 
passed an ordinance allowing the Min- 
neapolis & St. Louis railroad to build 
a sidetrack across 2nd ave. n., between 
5th and 6th st., the usual provision 
was included tliat if at any time the 
public good demanded the council could 
order the track removed. This was not 
looked upon with pleasure by Butler 
Bros., who wired that unless the clause 
was stricken out they would not come 
to Minneapolis. 

The council committee on railroads 
met in special session this morning to 
hear the arguments. 

None of the members wanted to 
waive the city's rights. 

The committee was reluctant, but 
finally Aid. Lars M. Rand moved that 
the exception be made, and it was car- 
ried. 3 to 1, Aids. Chatfield, Rand and 
Clark voting in the affirmative, and Aid. 
Schoonmaker in the negative. 



T. B. Walker. 

(Tribune, Minneapolis, July 28, '06.) 
T. B. Walker, who has been instru- 
mental in securing for Minneapolis 
most of her large industries, expressed 
himself as being greatly pleased with 
the prospects which are held forth for 
the addition of another immense con- 
cern to the growing list of Minneapolis 
business houses. 



I 




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I 



NORTHWESTERN EUROPEAN EDITION 



DAILY 




TIMES 



THCXSDAY KORfi 



LIFE OF T. B. WALKER. 

(This article was written by Hon. James Gray, formerly Mayor of Minneapolis, and compiled from 
general biographies and a personal acquaintance with Mr. Walker, extending over some twenty years.) 



The Story of the self-made man, who 
battles with the great world and comes 
out triumphant, morally, financially and 
intellectually, appeals to every human 
heart. When success is rightfully 
earned, it is well earned, and the lowest 
or the highest of mankind has nothing 
but congratulation and praise showered 
upon him who wins such a victory. 
Among the citizens of the great com- 
monwealth of Minnesota there is none 
who holds a higher place in the hearts 
of his fellows than Thomas Barlow 
Walker, of Minneapolis. And the high 
appreciation in which this citizen is 
held is merited. Integrity of character, 
honesty of purpose, a high standard of 
culture and education, and a great sym- 
pathetic heart, paying heed to the de- 
mand of the lowly, these are the chief 
attributes of the man who has a warm 
place in the heart of every person in 
the great state of Minnesota. 

It is always interesting to trace the 
parental influences, which in a measure 
dictate the after life, and to note how, 
step by step, studiousness and ambition 
will broaden character and thought until 
the narrow limitations of youth and 
early manhood are but the incipiency of 
that which is to follow. His parents, 
Piatt Bayless and Austin Barlow Walk- 
er, migrated from New York, where 
they were connected with many respect- 
able and eminent families, who in turn 
trace their lineage to early New Eng- 
land and Puritan stock. From New 
York, the parents moved to Ohio, 
where, at Xenia. on the first of Febru- 
ary, 1840, their third child, T. B. Walk- 
er, was born. The name of Barlow was 
that of the mother, made honorable by 
two brothers bearing judicial titles, one 
in New York and the other in Ohio. 

The father embarked all his means in 
a Western emigrant train, but before 
realizing his ambitious project he died 
of cholera. The wagon train wended 
its way, but never yielded any return. 
The wife, left with four children, waged 
a heroic battle, but, from this time until 
his 16th birthday, Thomas shared the 
lot of many a fatherless boy in trial, 
struggle and longing aspirations to sat- 
isfy his cravings for knowledge and 
learning. 

The lad of 16 entered Baldwin Univer- 
sity, and with many interruptions con- 
tinued his study for several years. 



When not devoting himself to his stud- 
ies, he engaged as traveling representa- 
tive of Hon. Fletcher Hulet, the manu- 
facturer of the Berea grindstone. Books 
were his companions on his travels. He 
had an aptness for the mathematical 
studies, as well as for the sciences, par- 
ticularly astronomy and chemistry. In 
these branches he went far beyond the 
requirements of the curriculum, master- 
ing the chief problems of Newton's 
Principia. 

Ever ambitious to attain financial in- 
dependence, when 19 years of age, he 
undertook a contract to furnish a rail> 
road then under construction, with 
cross ties at Paris, 111. A large camp 
was organized and for 18 months the 
force, headed by the young man, was 
engaged in the forest with ax and 
teams. The contract was fulfilled and 
would have yielded considerable return, 
but the failure of the railroad corpora- 
tion deprived the young contractor of 
all but a few hundred dollars. The 
following winter was occupied in teach- 
ing a district school. At McGregor, la., 
he met J. Robinson, of Minneapolis, 
on his way down the river at the time. 
Tha attractions and opportunities of the 
embryo Northwestern city were pre- 
sented to him in such a light and with 
so much enthusiasm that Mr. Walker 
immediately determined to come to 
Minnesota and see for himself just what 
the condition of afifairs was. Arriving 
in St. Paul with a consignment of grind- 
stones, he met an energetic and vigor- 
ous young man, who was employed by 
the transportation company as a clerk. 
That man was James J. Hill, now presi- 
dent of the Great Northern railroad, 
but who was then entering upon his 
business career. It was quite a coinci- 
dence that two such prominent person- 
ages in the Northwest today should en- 
ter upon an acquaintance when they 
occupied humble stations in life. 

Within an hour of reaching Minne- 
apolis, he entered the employ of George 
B. Wright, who had a contract to sur- 
vey government lands, and began pre- 
parations to take the field. During the 
following winter, a desk in the office of 
L. M. Stewart, one of the prominent 
lawyers of the city, was occupied, and 
the commendations that "he had put in 
the best winter's work on his books that 
he had ever seen a young man do" was 

2 



well earned. The following season was 
spent in examining lands for the St. 
Paul & Pacific Railroad. 

The romantic is not wanting in the 
life of Mr. Walker. Among his com- 
panion students at Baldwin University- 
was the daughter of his employer, Miss 
Harriet G. Hulet. An engagement of 
marriage had been made before Mr. 
Walker left the place which he had 
made his home for several years, and 
on the 19th of December, 1863, he was 
quietly married to Miss Hulet. They 
came to this city, and set about the 
acquisition of a home. The struggle 
was a long one and many hardships 
fell to the lot of the two young people. 
A humble home was secured, and better 
ones followed, until today one of the 
rnost palatial and thoroughly conve- 
nient of the down town residences is oc- 
cupied by Mr. and Mrs. Walker, to- 
gether with their family of seven chil- 
dren, five of whom remain at home, the 
next eldest, Leon, having died several 
years ago. 

For five years immediately following 
his marriage, Mr. Walker was chiefly 
engaged upon government surveys, 
though for a part of the time railroad 
engineering occupied his attention. Mr. 
Walker decided to engage in the lum- 
ber manufacturing business. He be- 
came the owner of fine tracts of 
land well timbered, and set about the 
manufacture and sale of lumber. His 
first venture was in 1867. He became 
associated with Dr. Levi Butler and 
Howard Mills, at first simply in locat- 
ing lands, but later in logging and 
manufacturing lumber, as well as in 
selling pine stumpage. For five years 
the firm held together, and then the ill 
health of Mr. Mills forced him to retire. 
The firm of Butler & Walker was con- 
tinued after the retirement of Mr. Mills, 
and for a number of years until the dis- 
astrous fire on the East Side of the 
Mississippi river burned two of the 
mills, resulting in a large loss to the 
firm. 

A new partnership was formed within a 
very short time, however, as L. Butler & 
Co., and consisting of Mr. Walker, Dr. 
Levi Butler, James C. Merriam, James 
W. Lane and Leon Lane. This firm 
constructed one of the largest saw mills 
on the East Side at the new dam. and 
did a large manufacturing business for 
several years, the largest at that time 
of any in the city. Later the firm be- 
came Butler & Walker again, but during 
the depression of 72 and 73 the latter 
retired, showing his business sagacity, 
for those who remained in business 
suflfered large losses. In 1877, the times 
becoming more prosperous the well 
known firm of Camp & Walker was 
formed, the partner being Maj. George 
A Camp, for many years surveyor gen- 
eral of logs in the district, and a gentle- 



man thoroughly posted and informed in 
the handling of them. 

The Pacific mill, long operated by 
Joseph Dean & Co., was purchased and 
operated until the fall of 1880, when it 
was burned. During the succeeding 
winter and spring it was rebuilt. It was 
operated until 1887. Owning their own 
pine timber, mills and lumber yards, 
the firm of Camp & Walker did an ex- 
tensive lumber business. 

Mr. Walker had located large quanti- 
ties of pine lands about the sources of 
Red Lake river, the outlet of which is 
by the way of the Red river of the 
North. To utilize the timber he organ- 
ized, with his eldest son, the Red River 
Lumber Company and built a large 
mill at Crookston and another at Grand 
Forks on the Red river. The attitude 
of Mr. Walker has always been one of 
friendliness toward the laboring man. 
He was the principal contributor to the 
fund for building the Labor Temple, 
and has always been on the side of the 
man trying to make his way in the 
world. An incident which illustrates 
this occured last summer. For the first 
time in 26 years the ordinary employes 
engaged in the lumber mills of Mr. 
Walker at Crookston were placed on 
wages of $1.25 per day. In view of the 
time, work at any price was considered 
fortunate to be obtained, but the men 
at Crookston became dissatisfied and 
several meetings were held. The own- 
ers were not particularly anxious to run 
the mill, even at the price that was be- 
ing paid. The foreman counseled with 
the men to show them how foolish a 
strike would be. They listened to him 
and never presented their alleged griev- 
ances. Mr. Walker knew of the cir- 
cumstances, and as soon as it was evi- 
dent that his men were not trying to 
coerce him, he voluntarily raised their 
wages to $1.40, although it was apparent 
he would lose money thereby. He did 
lose money, but there is not a man in 
the employ of the Crookston mill that 
doesn't look upon him with the greatest 
gratitude. 

Mr. Walker is the managing partner 
of Walker & Akeley, of this city, the 
largest timber firm in the state. This 
company derives its timber supplies 
from the Minnesota Logging Company, 
hauling the logs after they are cut by 
way of the principal logging railway of 
northern Minnesota, which extends 
from Leech Lake to Brainerd and over 
which 60,000.000 to 100,000,000 feet of 
lumber are shipped every year. 

He is also the principal owner and 
stockholder in the Central Market Com- 
pany of Minneapolis, which owns the 
city market, on Sixth street, between 
Second and Third avenues N. This 
building was recently destroyed by fire 
at a loss of about a quarter of a million. 
The work of rebuilding was commenced 



immediately and already the structure 
is ready for occupancy. 

T. B. Walker and B. F. Nelson are 
the owners of the Hennepin Paper 
Company, with large mills at Little 
Falls. He is, besides being interested 
in the above business enterprises, the 
president of the Minneapolis Land & 
Investment Company, the company that 
has control of the town site of St. 
Louis Park, a thriving manufacturing 
suburb located near Minneapolis. The 
well nown generosity of Mr. Walk- 
er and his interests in his fellow 
mortals is shown by his administra- 
tion of affairs at St. Louis Park, 
and is so different from the man- 
ner in which one of other wealthy 
man, Mr. Pullman, of Pullman, 111., 
transacts business, that it is worthy of 
mention. The rent paid by occupants 
of St. Louis Park houses last summer 
was from $8 to $14 per month, but late 
in the fall many of the factories were 
obliged to close down altogether and 
those that continued in operation, cut 
wages about 20 per cent. Instead of 
holding rents, which were very low, at 
the same point as formerly, the proprie- 
tors of the townsite decreased them in 
proportion and those persons who were 
thrown out of work were informed that 
they would not be required to pay any 
rent unless they could afford to do so. 
Some of the families were unprovided 
with food and large sleigh loads of 
flour and other provisions were distrib- 
uted among them, paid for out of the 
private purse of Mr. Walker. These 
few incidents but illustrate how Mr. 
Walker first regards the wants of his 
fellows, even before his own pleasure is 
consulted in many instances. 

Always interested above all other 
things in public education, valuing books 
and libraries at their true worth, Mr. 
Walker was a contributor to and a 
stockholder in the Minneapolis Athe- 
naeum. The privileges of this corpora- 
tion were exclusive, and only to stock- 
holders was the right to draw books 
given. Believing in his heart that 
every person who would make the effort 
was entitled to an education, and such 
privileges as were afforded by the Athe- 
naeum. Mr. Walker gave years of 
labor to make it entirely free. Buying 
many shares, he distributed them among 
deserving young people, and procured 
the lowering of the price of stock. He 
also secured the admission of the gener- 
al public to the reading room, and by 
the payment of a small fee, to the books 
as well. 

But the public spirit and interest of 
Mr. Walker did not stop with these 
reforms. He saw that a great, free, 
public library giving out hundreds of 
books every day. and disseminating 
knowledge with the most liberal hand, 
would be a greater instrument in secur- 



ing the general progress of all the 
people than any other that could be 
found. It was through his constant 
agitation that Minneapolis secured the 
library building, with its store of nearly 
100,000 books, absolutely free for the 
use of the citizens. To enlarge the edu- 
cational scope of the library, quarters 
were secured in the building for the 
Academy of Natural Science and for 
the Society of Fine Arts, in both of 
which Mr. Walker has taken an espe- 
cial interest. Nor did his interest stop 
at this point. The walls of the art gal- 
lery are well spread with his canvases, 
donated, and some of which are loaned. 
Through his intervention. J. J. Hill, 
of St. Paul, and Samuel Hill, of this 
city, have permitted the use of some 
of their best paintings. President J. J, 
Hill added to his loan collection recent- 
ly- 

In the midst of his intense interest 
in business matters, Mr. Walker finds 
time to devote many hours to his own 
educational advancement. He is an 
indefatigable student, and the Bible has 
been given as thorough study at his 
hands as it has received from many a 
minister of the gospel. He gives thor- 
ough attention to social and political 
questions of the day, looking at them 
from a neutral standpoint and then rea- 
soning out his own opinions. 

In philanthropic circles he is regard- 
ed as one of the most benevolent of 
Minneapolis' citizens. Mr. Walker 
shows his kindly bent mind by trans- 
forming his handsome lawn surrounding 
his residence in the very heart of the 
city into a park for public use. Seats 
have been placed in shady nook.s, and 
many a weary pedestrain stops in his 
walk on a hot summer day to rest a 
few minutes. These are all practical 
kinds of charity, aside from which there 
are many of those secret acts of assist- 
ance, only the one benefited can appre- 
ciate and know. 

Mr. Walker's art gallery is one of the 
sights of the city, and many a visitor to 
the metropolis has found pleasure in 
the treasures which it contains. It 
has many fine works chosen with artis- 
tic taste. Among the more renowned 
of modern paintings which adorn its 
walls are the following: "Napoleon in 
His Coronation Robes." by David; 
Jules Breton's "Evening Call;" Bouguer- 
eau's "Passing Shower;" Rosa Bon- 
heur's "Spanish Muleteers Crossing the 
Pyrenees;" Corot's "Scenes in Old 
Rome;" Boulanger's "Barber Shop of 
Licinius;" Wilhelm von Kaulbach's 
"Dispersion of the Nations;" Poole's 
"Job and His Messengers;" Jazet's 
"Battle of Trafalgar;" Vibert's "Morn- 
ing News;" Robert Lefevre's original 
portrait of Napoleon; Josephine and 
Marie Louise; Pearle's portrait of Gen. 
Washington; Detaille's "En Tonkin," 



with fine examples by Kanus, Van 
Marke, Jacque, Rousseau, Francois, Ga- 
briel Ferrier, Cazin, Schreyer, Inness, 
Moran, Lerolle, Brown, Herman, Los- 
sow, and many other equally famous 
artists. 

Mr. Walker has done his greatest 
good in business directions. The prime- 
val forests have been transferred under 
his hands into thriving, bustling cities 
and towns, and for a quarter of a cen- 
tury he has continued this process of 
bringing into existence that which is 
valuable for man and tends toward his 
advancement. He has furnished em- 
ployment to thousands and thousands 
of men and has paid the very best of 
salaries, an item which is of great mo- 
ment to the laboring classes. This, in 
itself, is the very best kind of practical 
charity, for so many men, when they 
attain positions of affluence, withdraw 
their capital and live upon the unearned 
increment, to use a Populist expression. 
Instead of doing this, Mr. Walker 
broadened his operations, and his work 
of building up and helping wage earn- 
ers by giving them good work which 
has endeared him in the minds of many 
hundreds of people who have been in 
his employ. Although wealthy he is 
not arrogant, or autocratic, but the 
poorest is on the same plane as himself 
when it comes to conversation or per- 
sonal acquaintance. He has acted like 
the steward of his own wealth, aiming 
to make it serve the ends of man rather 
than attempting to hoard it with miser- 
ly love of wealth for its own sake. 



A TYPICAL MINNEAPOLITAN 



A Sketch of One of Minneapolis' Most 

Prominent Citizens, Hon. T. B. Walker, 

Nominated by the Republicans as 

a Member of the Library 

Board. 

In this age of struggle and scramble 
after the almighty dollar, it is a pleas- 
ure to know that there are some people 
who can turn aside from the contest and 
devote some of their time and money 
to helping their fellow man. When 
there are such people in the world, one 
cannot lose hope in the millennium 

There is probably none in the city 
who is a better type of such a man 
than Thomas Barlow Walker. Among 
the residents of Minneapolis there is not 
one who stands higher as a business 
man or whose reputation for integrity 
and honor is greater. He was born in 
Xenia, Ohio, in 1840, where he passed 
his youtli. In early manhood he start- 
ed out in life for himself and located in 
this city 32 years ago, where he has 
since resided. Since 1868 he has been 
engaged in the lumber business and to- 
day is probably the largest owner of 
inne lands in the Nortlnvcst. 



Mr. Walker, in all his business trans- 
actions has never swerved from the 
strictest honesty, and today none can 
say that he ever acquired a dollar of 
his fortune in any other than an honor- 
ble way, or at the expense of his fellow 
man. 

In his devotion to business Mr. Walk- 
er has not neglected the finer side ot 
life. He is not only a thorough busi- 
ness man, but possesses scholarly at- 
tainments of high order. He has a gen- 
ial and sympathetic nature and impress- 
es the stranger with his strong person- 
ality. One cannot converse with him 
without feeling that he is in the pres- 
ence of a cultured and refined gentle- 
man. 

His artistic nature has made him the 
possessor of some of the finest paint- 
ings in the country, and with his cus- 
tomary liberality he has not only 
thrown open his gallery to all who may 
desire to see it, but also has hung some 
of his finest works on the walls of the 
art gallery in the Public Library. 

Of the benevolence of Mr. Walker 
and his noble wife it is unnecessary to 
speak. In all public enterprises for the 
furtherance of the glory and reputation 
of Minneapolis he has taken an active 
part. And when financial assistance has 
been required he gives with a generous 
hand. However, his public benevolences 
are but a small part of the sums con- 
tributed for the benefit of others. The 
charity is not ostentatious, but is of 
the kind which finds out the deserving 
poor and needy and assists them when 
help is most needed. There are hun- 
dreds in this city who have had cause to 
bless the names of Mr. and Mrs. Walk- 
er. 

Hs is not of those who grind and 
tyrannize over their employes in order 
that a great show of public charity may 
be made, but his workmen are paid 
good wages and treated as if they were 
human beings. 

Mr. Walker is a patron of literature 
and owns one of the best private libra- 
ries in the city. Since the foundation of 
the public library he has been one of its 
strongest supporters and has given it 
his personal attention, in addition to 
financial aid. When the nominations 
for the library board were considered 
by the Republican committee, it paid 
Mr. Walker but his just due when it 
placed him in nomination as one of the 
members of the board. 

Every one wlio desires to see a library 
board composed of members who will 
give their attention to the needs of the 
library, who will be its active and ener- 
getic supporters and who are well 
equipped for the necessary duties, can- 
not do therwise than cast their ballots 
for Mr. Walker. — Minneapolis Times, 
Oct. 16, 1894. 



FIT FOR THE GODS 



Such is the Magnificent Building Minneapolis Has Erected as a 
Home for the Muses. The Public Library and Art Building 
to be Formally Thrown Open Tomorrow Afternoon. A De- 
scription of the Beautiful Temple and Its Fine Internal and 
External Appointments. 



Minneapolis Tribune, Aug. 18, 1902. 



The Minneapolis public library and art 
building, by far the finest creation archi- 
tecturally and otherwise that the liberal 
policy of the city has ever suggested or 
its public-spirited citizens undertaken, 
will be thrown open to the public to- 
morrow. The event will be celebrated 
by a reception at the building which will 
do honor to the occasion and be an aus- 
picious opening of a long era of useful- 
ness in the community. The magnifi- 
cent structure, standing on the divid- 
ing line between the busy home of traf- 
fic and the quite seclusion of the home, 
will throw its influence over both, and 
with its precious store of literature and 
paintings, and other products of the 
arts, will serve as a mighty inspiration 
to the people of all classes and condi- 
tions. It is desired to dispense its bene- 
fits impartially. Plebeian and aristo- 
crat will share its advantages alike. It 
belongs to the city. It is the property 
of her citizens whose wise legislation 
and liberal policy made its existence 
possible, and in architectural design and 
finish and in the uses it will serve in 
the commonwealth, is one of its fairest 
ornaments. Here will be gathered all 
the literary treasures of the city, and 
the arrangements are such that all will 
be shown to their best advantage. Fa- 
mous books, superb paintings, artistic 
bric-a-brac, that have hitherto been 
floating obscurely about the city, seen 
by but few and enjoyed by less, and 
like the desert flower, seemingly born 
to blush unseen, will here find a perma- 
nent home, a place where they will be ac- 
cessible to all the world at all times and 
occasions, and in a position to exert 
their full measure of influence in the 
community. 

The library board is made up of as 
thoroughly representative and public- 
spirited men as the city can boast of. 
Indeed, it was because they possessed 
these sterling attributes that they were 
chosen to serve in that capacity. They 
are not only representative business 
men, but nearly all have at different 
times taken the lead in many of the 
city's grandest enterprises, financial, 
educational, and, in fact, in all lines 
aiding in the development of the city 
and the elevation of its citizens. 

Most worthy to head the aggregation, 



both from his long idenlihcatiun with 
the city and his loyalty and devotion to 
all her interests, is T. B. Walker, presi- 
dent of the board. He has given days 
and weeks of valuable time to further 
the interests of the library building, 
even neglecting his private aflfairs to 
advance those of the library, and has 
given every detail of business connected 
with it the same searching attention 
that he devotes to his own business. 
While to E. M. Johnson undoubtedly 
belongs the credit of getting the bill 
through the legislature which made the 
present public library possible, it is 
due to Mr. Walker's indomitable push 
and devotion to the cause that brought 
about such splendid results. The two 
men together have made a tremendous 
team, and with such coadjutors as 
Thomas Lowry, M. B. Koon, Swen 
Offedahl, J. B. Atwater, A. C. Austin, 
E. C. Babb and President Cyrus North- 
rop, it is not at all strange that they 
have wrought so wisely. The president 
of the board of education, the mayor, 
and the president of the university are 
members ex-officio. The other six are 
chosen by the people at general elec- 
tions. There is no salary attachment 
and the members' enthusiasm and ener- 
gy has been inspired wholly by love for 
the good cause. 



ARGUES AGAINST LAND LAW 
REPEAL. 



T. B. Walker Says It Would Make 

Both Poor and Rich Suffer. 
Globe Special Washington Service, 1417 
G Street. 
Washington. D. C, April 6.— T. B. 
Walker, of Alinneapolis, appeared be- 
fore the house committee on public 
lands today and made an argument 
against the repeal of the timber and 
stone act. The bill under consideration 
was the one which already has passed 
the senate, which would give the secre- 
tary of the interior a right to dispose 
of the stumpage of timber at auction to 
the highest bidder. Mr. Walker con- 
tended that it would raise the price of 
scrip, and that the poor man and the 
ricli lumbermen would suffer great 
hardship by its passage. 
(Globe, St. Paul, Minn., Apr. 7. 1904.) 



THE ABERDEEN AMERICAN. 



WARNER, SOUTH DAKOTA, THURSDAY. JUNE 23, 1904. 



Hon. T. B. Walker at Aberdeen, 



The power of religion and its in- 
fluence and force in shaping the course 
of the world. This was the basis of a 
talk to the people of Aberdeen Sunday 
evening, by a man whose life has been 
inseparably associated with the great 
interests of this great Northwest in 
religion, politics, business, Hon. T. B. 
Walker, of Minneapolis. His great in- 
tellectual attainments, supplemented by 
a lifetime of studious attention and re- 
search, enable him to exercise his phi- 
losophy of reason in a clear, strong, 
easily understood manner. His tone of 
voice did not have the usual superfluous 
inflection, like the rise and fall of a 
tempest, but was pleasing and distinct. 
Every statement was full and precise. 
Every sentence was correctly formed 
from the foundation of reason and truth. 
He did not treat of superstition, he did 
not quote from the Bible, but called 
your attention to yourself. You have 
to do with yourself as you will. That, 
he says, is the plan of creation, people 
are born without minds anticipating 
that wisdom will come to them if not 
repelled, and just as fast as they are 
prepared to receive wisdom it will be 
advanced to them. 

There were no attempts at humor in 
his address. There were no appeals to 
passion. It was deep, earnest, unani- 
mated thought, given life in expression 
from the best trained business mind in 
the West. He speaks to us of confi- 
dence. The reason why people have 
confidence in his judgment and ability 
is or lies in the fact that they know that 
he is as near right as it is jiossible for 
a human being to be. Trust is a sacred 
privilege. Extraordinary care should be 
exercised in its bestowal. And of the 
many trusts and unions only two are 
necessary, viz.. Trust in the immortal- 
ity of man, and the Great American 
Union. Instead of Unions vs. Trusts, 
we ought to have a union of trusts or 
a trust of unions merged into one, and, 
as McKinley said, it is not by conquest 
that the world is advanced, but by con- 
cord. 

The Rev. Dent once said that busi- 
ness methods must be installed in the 
church in order to get the best results. 
That is right; business is not the op- 
posite of religion, that part which would 
be considered the opposite of religion 
is not business. 

Real religion is the supreme and es- 
pecial part of human destiny and our 
principle mission here is to advance our 
interests on those lines. Just how to do 



that is not clear to some, but I think 
that Mr. Walker's idea is nearer the cor- 
rect one. We can only aid the supreme 
Power by aiding ourselves and kind. 
He does not need our assistance, but we 
probably do require His, and to get that 
assistance we must learn that we can- 
not get it by supplication and appeals 
on our knees, unless, as Mr. Walker 
says, we have fitted ourselves for the 
place that we wish to occupy, which is 
eternal bliss, and we must not be found 
repulsive to blissful surroundings and 
association, but must know that we are 
in perfect harmony with glory in order 
to get a position of that kind and the 
poorest man is as eligible for that life 
as the millionaire, and there is a possi- 
bility that he has a little advantage, 
which fact is one of the distinct features 
of Heaven. 

I had supposed that I would find the 
street blocked with people and every 
balcony crowded to its utmost capacity, 
in an endeavor to hear what this dis- 
tinguished man would say to us. Many 
that read this will regret that they did 
not know that Hon. T. B. Walker was 
in Aberdeen. Mr. Walker is a truly 
great and a truly good man. In all the 
channels of religion, business and poli- 
tics, the Northwest has never had so 
powerful an advocate as he, in all its 
array of great men. Aside from his 
greater qualities, Mr. Walker is the pos- 
sessor of the greatest fortune of any 
man west of Chicago and this great 
wealth he has accumulated along hu- 
mane and religious lines. That proves 
that a man has a greater advantage in 
being honest and kind with his neigh- 
bors. Everbody in Minneapolis also 
knows Mrs. Walker, Mrs. T. B. Walker. 
Her life has been one of benevolence 
and philanthropy. We hear of the 
kindness, charity and human sympathy 
of this leader of Minneapolis women, 
very often and continuously. 

Mr. T. B. Walker is not a pessmist, 
but has wisdom of a superior quality 
perfected by association and years of 
mental development. Not over cautious, 
he made this statement: "I wish to re- 
peat the stalcment of Senator Davis, 
made to me in his committee room at 
the National Capitol shortly before he 
was taken down with his illness which 
terminated fatally: 'I see nothing but 
hopeless gloom before my country, un- 
less its Government is placed upon a 
truly religious basis,' " And this whole 
idea of religion rests with each individ- 
ual, Mr. Walker says. He furnishes 



philosophical proof that we are ad- 
vanced as fast as we advance our- 
selves. That good comes to the good. 
That bad comes to the bad. And that 
it is not necessary for you to quote the 
Scripture or Bible to convince yourself 
that it is light when the light is shin- 
ing full in your face. Air. Walker 
does not try to make plain that which 
is not plain. He tries to show, and 
does show, that we have as his name- 
sake says, in creation revealed more 
than enough to convince those who 
are not determined to shut out the light. 
That religion, business, politics, are one. 

Men must not expect especial favors 
from the Ruler of destiny. But the just 
and impartial dispenser of justice to 
mankind will reward those who are 
entitled to a reward, and with a degree 
of merit to which the bestowee is en- 
titled. 

Whatever may have induced this 
eminent gentleman to condescend to 
honor Aberdeen with his presence may 
only be known to himself, but we do 
know that his time is far too valuable 
to be used for any other purpose than 
that for which men employ the nobler 
faculties of life. The safety and ad- 
vancement of the world rest with 
men like Senator Kyle and T. B. Wal- 
ker. 

When South Dakota was flying Kyle's 
pennant, we knew it was the signal for 
good behavior and we always put on our 
best manners. There was that feeling 
or sensation that we feel but cannot ex- 
press, when in the presence of men so 
vastly superior to ourselves. Mr. Wal- 
ker appears to have no thought of 
what people term "private life." He ap- 
pears to be very much interested in the 
welfare and happiness of the whole hu- 
man family. In his residence, which is 
open to the public at all hours of the 
day, all days excepting Sunday (and he 
is considering the proposition of Sun- 
day opening), is the most celebrated 
collection of rare and almost priceless 
paintings, selected with a thorough 
knowledge of art and artists, from the 
most famous galleries and private 
studios of Europe. Pictures endowed 
with everything but life. Pictures 
that have a history, which would re- 
quire a volume to tell you all about. 
In fact pronounced the best pieces of 
art, from the greatest creations, from 
the greatest masters, to be found among 
the many magnificent galleries in the 
United States. The Belgian Minister to 
the United States traveled across the 
continent to see Mr. T. B. Walker's 
paintings. Would you like to see them? 
You can most certainly have that pleas- 
ure, as Mr. Walker extends to every 
man, woman and child in Aberdeen, as 
well as those from other localities, an 
invitation to inspect them at leisure and 
at all times free of cost. This leads us 



to believe that if there are special dispen- 
sations of great fortunes, by a supreme 
being, then this was like all others a 
wise one. Mr. Walker's fortune is vast 
millions. But his neighbors tell me 
that his heart is larger than his fortune, 
and that his intellectual ability sur- 
passes either. 

If we had a world of men like this, 
people would not be in such a hurry to 
get to heaven. 

The large lawn, beautifully land- 
scaped, surrounding Mr. Walker's home, 
appears to be always open to the pub- 
lic also. Under the stately trees and 
in their cooling shade you will notice 
inviting seats conveniently arranged for 
those who care to rest. 

H. F. SCOTT. 



FINE ARTS. 



Translation of a letter in the Paris Fi- 
garo by Champier. 

French Taste is to Find a Rival and to 
be Surpassed in America. 

In the new gallery of T. B. Walker, 
adjoining his residence, on Hennepin 
avenue, are hung several new canvases 
representing the work of some of the 
most noted painters. Mr. Walker's gal- 
lery is justly famed and he is continual- 
ly entertaining visitors who frequently 
come long distances to see his pictures. 
His new gallery consists of a suite of 
three rooms hung on all sides. Among 
the recent additions to his collection is 
a dark toned portrait of a lady in Rem- 
brandt rufif, painted in 1651 by Ferdi- 
nand Bol, a pupil of Rembrandt, and to 
whose hand is undoubtedly due many 
of the so-called Rcmbrandts. Two 
quiet landscapes are by Delpy, a pupil 
of Daubigny, and one who has bor- 
rowed many of the best traits of his 
master. A large Schreyer, pronounced 
one of the best in the country, a Geri- 
cault, a capital horse picture, a little 
bit of landscape, by Julien, of the Aca- 
demy in Paris, a square of rich luxu- 
riant green, by George Inness, a large 
Bouguereau, one of the earliest works 
of the painter, showing two Normandy 
girls at prayer, are a few of the more 
noted works which have been lately 
added to this collection. — Tribune, Dec. 
2, 1893. 

A noble charity is that of Mr. and 
Mrs. T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis, who 
have given up a large part of their beau- 
tiful home lawn on Hennepin avenue 
for a public playground for children. 
For many years they have kept benches 
around their lawn for free public use, 
and the seats are evidently well appre- 
ciated, for they are almost always in 
use. Such an example is worthy of 
general imitation. 

Morristown Press, Aug. 17, 1899. 




NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1902. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER 



A Prominent Lumberman of Minnesota. — Owner of One of the 
Finest Private Art Collections in the World. 



Sagacity, perseverance and ability, to- 
gether with a determination to do al- 
ways what was best and not what he 
thought the best, has brought about the 
conspicuous success of the life's work 
of the subject of this sketch. Left on 
his own resources in early youth, 
Thomas B. Walker has forged his way 
upward and onward, and has gained 
fortune and distinction. He has not 
only demonstrated his ability in his 
chosen field of business activity, but 
in art and literature he has also gained 
fame. His character is above reproach, 
and he has always practiced the highest 
type of honesty. In all his transactions, 
business and social, he has been consid- 
erate of the rights of others. With a 
strong belief in the ultimate success of 
correctly applied endeavor, he labored 
hard and continuously toward his covet- 
ed goal, and no dishonest fortune has 
ever come into his possession. He is 
indeed a type of the successful Ameri- 
can that the aspiring young men of the 
land may well emulate. 

Mr. Walker was born at Xenia, Ohio, 
February 1, 1840, and is a son of Piatt 
Bayless Walker and Anstis Keziah (Bar- 
low) Walker. His father was a shoe- 
maker by trade, but by occupation was 
a contractor and speculator. He was 
in good circumstances, but, catching 
the "gold fever"in 1849, he invested his 
competency in a train of merchandise 
and started across the plains for Cali- 
fornia. Cholera broke out in the com- 
pany, and Mr. Walker was one of the 
first victims, dying on the plains near 
Warrensburg, Alissouri. Although the 
train was carried through to its destina- 
tion and the goods sold, none of the 
proceeds ever reached the deceased's 
family. The mother of the subject of 
this sketch was a native of New York, 



as was her husband, but both had lived 
for years in Ohio. 

Having been left upon his own re- 
sources at an early age, and compelled 
to work for his livelihood, Thomas B. 
Walker had few opportunities to at- 
tend school; but he made good use of 
those presented, and at the age of six- 
teen he entered Baldwin University, at 
Berea, Ohio. By attending the univer- 
sity for several years in periods of a 
term at a time, and keeping up with 
his class while absent, working as a 
traveling salesman, he completed his 
course. On the road traveling, he car- 
ried two valises, one containing his 
school-books, which he studied at all 
sj^are times; and this habit has contin- 
ued with him through life, and by it 
he has secured a splendid education, be- 
coming thoroughly informed upon a 
number of subjects on which he is a 
recognized authority. At nineteen years 
of age, he secured a contract from the 
railroad at Paris, Illinois, for getting 
out crossties and cordwood, and he con- 
tinued this work for eighteen months, 
when the company failed and he lost 
all the profits which had accrued. His 
experience and the knowledge he gained 
of timber, though of little value to him 
at the time, proved subsequently to be 
worth all it had cost. Returning to his 
home, he taught school for a year, and 
then resumed the traveling business, ac- 
cepting a position with Hon. Fletcher 
Hulet, who was a manufacturer of 
grindstones at Berea. In 1862, on his 
v. ay up the Mississippi River, Mr. 
Walker heard of the attractions and 
prospects of Minneapolis, which was 
then a mere hamlet, and he immediate- 
ly proceeded to that place. Soon after 
his arrival he engaged to go with a 
party on a government land survey, 



which venture narrowly escaped a dis- 
astrous ending, as it proceeded, through 
ignorance, into the heart of a country 
infested with hostile Indians. After 
many privations, the party finally 
reached Fort Ripley, where they were 
welcomed as a reinforcement to the 
small garrison then holding that point. 
Mr. Walker sjient two or three years 
in government survey work, and one 
year on the survey of the St. Paul & 
Duluth Railway, where he gained a 
thorough knowledge of the timber coun- 
try, and he decided to engage in the 
pine land business. He organized the 
firm of Butler, Mills & Walker, putting 
in his time, knowledge and experience 
against his partners' money. Under his 
management, the firm was eminently 
successful, logging and building and op- 
erating mills and lumber yards. The 
partnership continued for several years, 
terminating with the death of Dr. Levi 
Butler and the removing of Howard 
Mills' residence to California. At the 
same time Mr. Walker was interested 
with Henry T. Wells in the purchase of 
pine timber, and he subsequently be- 
came engaged in the lumber industry 
in all parts of northern Minnesota and 
Dakota. Mr. Walker owned and oper- 
ated mills on the St. Anthony Falls, and 
for many years with Major George H. 
Camp, under the firm name of Camp & 
Walker, operated the "J- Dean" mill. 
With his son, Gilbert M. Walker, under 
the name of the Red River Lumber 
Company, he later built two mills, one 
at Crookston, Minnesota, and one at 
Grand Forks, North Dakota. This firm 
is still active, and three more of his 
sons are interested in it. The mills are 
now at Akeley, Minnesota. Mr. Walk- 
er is also associated with H. C. Akeley, 
under the firm name of Walker & Ake- 
ley, in the ownership of large tracts of 
pine lands. Since 1889, when Mr. Walk- 
er sent his superintendent of timber to 
the Pacific Coast as an expert to exam- 
ine the various timber tracts, he has had 
in view the purchase of pine timber in 
that part of the country, and in 1894 
he began to personally look over the 
opportunities for investment in that sec- 
tion. He proceeded quietly, and when, 
in the early part of the present year, 
the annotinccmcnt was made of his our- 
chases in the Mt. Shasta district, Cali- 
fornia, the Pacific Coast lumbermen be- 
gan to realize that they had been out- 
stripped by a more alert and shrewder 
rival. Mr. Walker owns now the larg- 
est tracts of pine timber possessed by 
any one person or firm in the country. 

Though busy with his lumber inter- 
ests, Mr. Walker has been active in add- 
ing to the material wealth of Minneapo- 
lis and the adjacent country. He built 
the Central Market and Commission 
Row in Minneapolis, where is located 
the wholesale commission business of 



that city. The market is one of the 
largest and most commodious whole- 
sale and retail markets in the West. 
Mr. Walker, under the firm name of 
the Land and Investment Company, 
was the projector and the builder of 
St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minneapo- 
lis. Here is located a number of large 
manufacturing concerns and the noted 
Beet Sugar plant. The construction of 
the St. Louis Park and Hopkins Street 
Railway to these thriving suburbs is a 
part of the plan, and has proven a pro- 
fitable investment. Mr. Walker was one 
of the originators of the Business Men's 
Union, which for many years did not- 
able work for Minneapolis, and he has 
also been a supporter of the Board of 
Trade. 

Appreciating the value and the good 
done by public libraries, Mr. Walker 
became the means and instrument 
through which the present Minneapolis 
public library was organized and set 
in useful operation. H gave liberally 
in aid of its beautiful building and ap- 
pointments, and keeps its art gallery 
supplied with fine works from his pri- 
vate collection. He has been President 
of the Board of Directors since its first 
organization. 

During the past fifteen years or more, 
Mr. Walker has been engaged in mak- 
ing a collection of the best oil paint- 
ings, bronzes and other works of art, 
and is the proud possessor of one of the 
finest, if not the finest, private art col- 
lections in the world. On the walls 
of his gallery are found the choicest 
productions of such masters as Corot, 
Rousseau, Rosa Bonheur, Diaz, Ho- 
garth, Sir Thomas Lawrence, David, Le 
Fevre, Bouguereau, Schreyer, Jacque, 
Breton, Madam Demont, Turner, Rem- 
brandt, Peele, Guido Reni, Van Dyke, 
Rubens, Von Der Heist, Pourbus, 
Mieswelt, Raphael. Sebastian Del Piom- 
bo, Sir William Baehy, Ofrie, Rubun, 
and many other ancient and modern 
artists of fame. Over fifty of these 
paintings are hung in the gallery at the 
public library, but the majority, with 
the bronzes and ivories, are in his pri- 
vate gallery at the family residence, 
803 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis. 
This gallery is held open to the public 
every day, except Sunday, and is visited 
by art lovers from all over the world. 
Mr. Walker lias recently added several 
more rooms to his private galley, and 
in one of these rooms he has hung his 
collection of portraits by old and mod- 
ern masters. This particular collection 
is unequaled in any private gallery in 
the world, and contains a number of 
rare and unsurpassable works of art. 
Mr. Walker is a member of the Nation- 
al Art Society, President of the Minne- 
apolis Fine Art Society, and a member 
and one of the princii)al supporters of 
the Academy of Science. He has also 



in his home a fine private library, equal 
to any in the country. Science, theolo- 
gy, political economy, history and other 
subjects are prominently represented, 
while he has gathered together for his 
own use and aid what is perhaps the 
finest Art Reference Library in the 
country. 

Politically Mr. Walker is a Republi- 
can, and cast his first vote for Abraham 
Lincoln. He is a close student of politi- 
cal economy, and during the last two 
presidential campaigns delivered a num- 
ber of able addresses and wrote exten- 
sively on the issues involved. 

Mr. Walker was happily married to 
Harriet G. Hulet, daughter of Hon. 
Fletcher Hulet, in Berea, Ohio. His 
wife is one of the most prominent re- 
formers in the United States, and is ac- 
tive in all movements for the elevation 
of her sex. In Minneapolis she takes 
a conspicuous part in many public and 
private charities, and is prominent in 
church circles. Mr. Walker is a pro- 
nounced Christian, and his purse is al- 
ways open to charitable and religious 
movements. His family consists of 
seven children, five sons, four of whom 
are in business with their father, and 
one is still in school, and two married 
daughters, one of whom is widowed. 
Mr. Walker has always been devoted to 
his home and family, and he has provid- 
ed his children with everything that 
goes to make them useful and upright 
men and women. D. E. O'Brien. 



Local Kit-Kats (in Black and White) 

By Ashleigh Cooper. 
T. B. Walker is a virile proof that 
The man of few words is— 
The man of force. 

In Thomas B. Walker is the harmo- 
nious combination of business activity, 
intellectual reserve, and aesthetic appre- 
ciation. 

Mr. Walker represents the fast declin- 
ing type of men who are pioneers. 
He represents the new order which 

promotes the beautiful and — 
Advocates the good. 
This man is an art critic of discretion. 
He grasps the true color and the natur- 
al posture with incredible rapidity— 
And sees in the picture— not the fame 

of the painter — but — 
The genius of the man. 
Thomas B. Walker is philanthro])ic. 

His philanthropy is that which has 
caused him to throw open his magnifi- 
cent art gallery to the public. 
It has made him feel that benches on 
his lawn would be agreeable to the 
many whose destiny is to walk rather 
than be conveyed through life. 
Mr. Walker is a man whose social in- 
clinations are subdued. 
As a citizen he believes in exerting a 
certain effort for social relationship. 



But— 

Also believes that such intercourse 
should emanate from the home. 
Mr. Walker advises all men and women 
to accept the highest education the state 
can give them. 

He comprehends that the situation of 
today will not be the situation of to- 
morrow — 

And feels that the expansion of culture 
will mean the expansion of good. 

Tribune, Jan. 29. 1902. 



Mississippi Valley Lumberman, June 10, 
A stranger walking up Hennepin av- 
enue the other evening with a city friend 
paused in front of the residence of Mr. 
T. B. Walker and wanted to know who 
owned that beautiful place. A lot of 
boys were having a bicycle race on 
one side of the broad lawn. On the 
other side some more boys were having 
a game of ball. Just on the edge of the 
lawn toward the street a number of 
comfortable seats were ranged on which 
ladies and gentlemen were seated, en- 
joying a pleasant siesta. The stranger 
was struck, just as a great many who 
are not strangers have been, by this 
sight. The stranger was still more sur- 
prised when he learned that the owner 
and occupant of the place was a million- 
aire lumberman, one of the wealthiest 
men in the city and the Northwest. (I 
believe Mr. Walker is considered the 
richest man in Minneapolis.) "Well," 
said the stranger, "he must have an aw- 
ful big family or else be the most public 
spirited and unconventional man in the 
United States. Most rich men like to 
have fine residences and beautiful 
grounds, but there is always a fence, 
either real or imaginary around, which 
says to the general public, 'Hitherto 
may thou come and look into the prom- 
ised land but no farther.' But this man 
Walker seems to be running a public 
park on his own hook." 

The characterization was correct. If 
the stranger had seen Mr. Walker him- 
self walking along the street with his 
moderate mien and entire absence of 
any evidence of the pomp and pride sup- 
posed to mark the presence of wealth 
he would have been even more sur- 
prised. Mr. Walker looks a good deal 
more like a pastor of a Presbyterian 
church or a professor in a Congrega- 
tional college than a bloated (?) pos- 
sessor of pine lands. And he has a 
good match in his wife — one of the least 
assuming and unpretentious appearing 
ladies in the city. She spends a great 
deal of time, strength and money in 
looking after the woman's charitable in- 
stitutions, her relations with which are 
in many cases almost maternal. As the 
stranger suspected the public gets al- 
most as much benefit of their beautiful 
but not extravagant or pretentious 
home as do the family. 



The P^rtoG^R^ESs. 



THOMAS B. WALKER. 



Father of Minneapolis' Magnificent Public Library.— Story of a 

Useful Life. 



The Philosopher Plato said concern- 
ing books: "A house that contains a li- 
brary has a soul." 

And the modern philosopher Emerson 
said concerning art: "What is that 
abridgement and selection we observe 
in all spiritual activity but itself the 
creative impulse? For it is the inlet of 
that higher illumination which teaches 
to convey a larger sense by simple sym- 
bols. What is a man but nature's finer 
success in self-explication? What is a 
man but a fine and compacter land- 
scape than the horizon figures; nature's 
electicism? And what is his speech, his 
love of painting, love of nature, but a 
still finer success? All the weary miles 
and tons of space and bulk left out, and 
the spirit or moral of it contracted into 
a musical word, or the most cunning 
stroke of the pencil?" 

And George Sand has said: "He who 
is a true lover of poetry is a real poet, 
though he may never have written a 
verse in his life." 

And we say that a true lover of paint- 
ing and sculpture, one who fully ap- 
preciates and truly admires the finest 
in art, is a real artist, though he may 
not be able to handle either brush or 
chisel. 

T. B. Walker is a great 

LOVER OF BOOKS AND ART. 

and though he may never have written 
a verse, painted a picture or seized 
mallet and chisel to make a block of 
marble speak the language of his lofty 
soul, we see through his patronage of 
art a noble specimen of Emerson's 
"electicism of nature," and a true speci- 
men of George Sand's ideal poet; while 
in his tribute to literature through his 
invaluable connection with the estab- 
lishment of our city's magnificent public 
library, we see in him Plato's ideal lifted 
on a broader plane than that of the 
planter of a soul in a single house; for 
we recognize in Mr. Walker the planter 
of a universal and abundant soul for 
a whole city. 

While Mr. Loring is hailed as the 
father of our park system, we behold 
in Mr. Walker the rightful father of our 
public library, and in consideration of 
this, we claim, without fear of dispute, 
that he is one of this city's greatest and 
most useful benefactors. 



Ever since the first incipicncy of the 
plan to establish the old Athenaeum, 
Mr. Walker's best energies in behalf 
of the public good have been directed 
toward the founding of 

A COMPLETE FREE LIBRARY. 

in every sense of the term — a grand 
public storehouse filled with the very 
best in literature and art, at which and 
from which all might intellectually feast 
without money and without price. That 
his efforts have been abundantly 
crowned with success none will gainsay 
who enter and intelligently observe this 
master tribute to learning and refine- 
ment — the Minneapolis Public Library. 
And for further proof of Mr. Walker's 
boundless love and patronage of the 
highest type of the pure and beautiful 
in literature and art, visit the man's 
home— where, if you are an admirer of 
these things, you will be welcomed by 
their owner — look into his home art 
gallery and private library, and you will 
see that nothing has been too rare and 
costly in the way of books and pictures 
to be given place by him among his 
household gods, in order that he might 
cultivate in his family a wholesome 
taste for the most elevating environ- 
ments, and make home to himself and 
loved ones "the dearest spot on earth." 
It is such a man as this that the 
Progress wants to sec retained as a 
member of the public library board. 
Let every voter who has the interest of 
the Minneapolis public library at heart 
to see to it that the name of T. B. 
Walker heads the ticket under the cap- 
tion of Minneapolis Library Board. But 
in order to appreciate the true charac- 
ter of the man we must take 

A GLANCE AT HIS LIFE's HISTORY. 

Thomas Barlow Walker was born at 
Xenia, Greene county, Ohio, on the first 
day of February, 1840, and is still a 
young man when we compare his age 
with the measure of his achievements. 
His father, Piatt Bayless Walker, was 
of pure English stock his people hav- 
ing been among the first settlers of 
New Jersey in the early history of this 
country. The father of the subject of 
this sketch left New Jersey early in 
life and went to New York, where he 



met and married Miss Austis K. Barlow, 
who was the daughter of Hon. Thomas 
Barlow, of New York, and sister of 
Judge Thomas Barlow, of the same 
state, and Judge Moses Barlow, of Ohio. 
Many of our readers will remember 
the noble and kindly Mrs. Barlow 
Walker, who was a central figure in the 
home of her son, Thomas B., having 
here happily passed the last sixteen 
years of her life, the doer of many 
noble deeds of charity. When our sub- 
ject was but eight years of age, his 
father was seized with the bold spirit 
of speculation that was rife with the 
most enterprising "forty-niners," after 
the discovery of gold in California, and 
invested almost his entire fortune in a 
wagon train of merchandise, and started 
for Sacramento. But at Westport, Mo., 
he fell a victim to the cholera scourge, 
leaving his wife and four young chil- 
dren to cope, alone, with the adversities 
of life. But the mother proved equal to 
the emergency, and as her offspring 
grew up and took upon themselves the 
burdens of life she found that she had 
a fortune in her grateful children that 
amply repaid her for all the anxious 
care she had bestowed upon them in 
their 

EARLY TRAINING. 

After a very speedy common school 
education, necessity drove our young 
hero into the life of a business man 
while he was yet a boy in years. 

We believe that this first early at- 
tempt at the transaction of business was 
to go "on the road" in the capacity of a 
commercial traveller to drum up trade 
for a well known eastern firm that dealt 
in grindstones, and, while following 
this vocation, the stack of books he 
carried with him for study on the 
route is said to have been much more 
bulky and quite as heavy as the balance 
of his luggage, which he carried in a 
separate grip. But Mr. Walker was a 
good salesman, as well as a great stu- 
dent, and his trips proved profitable to 
him in more than one sense of the term. 
For, while he was thus earning a living 
and saving some money, he found time 
on the route to keep up with the usual 
college course of study wliich he had 
commenced in the Baldwin University, 
at Berea, Ohio, where his parents had 
moved in order to give their children 
better educational advantages. Mr. 
Walker's greatest penchant was for the 
study of higher mathematics, which 
studies he so thoroughly mastered as 
to become well fitted for the position of 
a college professor of these branches, 
and was at one time imbued with the 
idea of taking up teaching as a profes- 
sion. While he was in this mood, in 
1862, he applied to the board of the 
Wisconsin State University for the 
chair of assistant professorship of 



mathematics, and the university board 
subsequently elected him to the position 
sought, but in the meantime, before the 
action of the board was reported to 
him, Mr. Walker made arrangements to 
engage in the government survey. 
About this time he came to the then 

VILLAGE OF . .INNEAPOLIS. 

and was so impressed with its beautiful 
and advantageous location that he re- 
solved to here make his future home. 

After arriving in Minneapolis he en- 
tered into service as a surveyor with 
Geo. B. Wright, who was then the chief 
surveyor of the state. But this start 
at surveying Minnesota lands was of 
short duration, for the Indian outbreak 
of that year forced the surveying party 
to take up quarters for safety in Fort 
Ripley, and Mr. Walker soon returned 
to Minneapolis and devoted the winter 
to his books. The following season he 
spent in examining lands for the St. 
Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and 
in the autumn of that year he went back 
to his home in Berea, Ohio, where, on 
the 19th day of December, 1863, he was 
married to Harriet G., youngest daugh- 
ter of Hon. Fletcher Hulet. Soon after 
this union, Mr. and Mrs. Walker came 
to Minneapolis, which has ever since 
been their home. 

Life here in those days was attended 
with the vicissitudes of the 

LIFE OF THE PIONEER. 

and Mrs. Walker nobly shared the trials 
of her husband in their first efforts at 
home-making, as she has since shared 
in all the fruits of his prosperity, and 
dispensing of a good share of their self- 
earned bounties to others. 

Thes ummer of 1864 Mr. Walker 
spent in running the surveys of the St. 
Paul and Duluth railroad, and for a 
number of years following, he gave his 
almost undivided attention to govern- 
ment surveys. This work gave him a 
thorough knowledge of the best pine 
lands of Minnesota and in 1868 he com- 
menced to profit by this fairly acquired 
knowledge, associating himself with 
men of ready means who were willing, 
also, to profit by Mr. Walker's knowl- 
edge, and from this time on valuable 
lands were located and gigantic lumber 
enter])rises were planned and carried 
forward to an almost unlimited success. 
Under such enterprises Minneapolis 
rapidly sprang into a flourishing town 
and rich city, and Mr. Walker, as a 
leader of this spirit of enterprise, soon 
became known as a man of wealth and 
vast achievements. He has, today, larg- 
er and more 

PROSPEROUS LUMBER INTERESTS. 

than any other citizen of Minnesota, be- 
sides many other prosperous enterprises 
and investments that greatly add to the 



city's welfare. And after looking 
closely into Mr. Walker's life and his- 
tory, we can truthfully say that he has 
honorably acquired all these and that 
he administers their profits in such a 
way as to make the lives of thousands 
much more happy and useful than they 
otherwise would be. 

THE PURLIC LIBRARY. 

T. B. Walker's interest in the Minne- 
apolis Public Library commenced with 
the old Athenaeum, when it had but 
little more than 4,000 volumes. It was 
not a very popular institution with the 
public then, as its rights and privileges 
were only extended to the few share- 
holders in the concern. Mr. Walker's 
first interest in this early and small 
commencement for a public library was 
marked by his strong and earnest plea 
for an increase of books and an exten- 
sion of its privileges to the general pub- 
lic. Through his influence and aid new 
books were purchased, the reading room 
was enlarged, the hours of service of 
the assistant librarian lengthened, and 
the Athenaeum after a time was brought 
to as liberal a basis of operations as 
was consistent with its constitution, 
which was in itself restrictive. The li- 
brary was opened on Sunday, and the 
use of its books extended through the 
privilege that was granted for the pay- 
ment of membership fees by install- 
ments. 

Mr. Walker purchased several hun- 
dred of these certificates of member- 
ship, which he kept loaned out to his 
employees and others. But in the rapid 
growth of the city, Mr. Walker 

FORESAW THE DEMAND. 

for a library that should meet the wants 
of a large mixed population and be free 
to all. Yet it seemed unnecessary to 
duplicate the large number of books 
then in the Athenaeum, and maintain 
two separate libraries. He therefore 
proposed that the city, by taxation, es- 
tablish a free library, upon condition 
that the citizens contribute a certain 
large sum toward the erection of the 
building, and that the Athenaeum, the 
Academy of Science, and the Fine Art 
Society be given space in the building, 
in consideration that the books of the 
Athenaeum library be circulated upon 
the same terms as those of the Public 
Library, and to be drawn in the same 
manner. This plan met with enthusias- 
tic approval, necessary legislation was 
secured, and Mr. Walker was the first 
to subscribe to the necessary fund for 
this purpose. 

And so our beautiful Public Library 
building became a reality and one of 
Mr. Walker's fondest desires for the 
good of the city was satisfied. 

The rapid growth of this institution 
in the past five years since the new 
building was formally opened (its 



standing in circulation now being fourth 
among the public libraries of the United 
State) and the pride of the citizens in 
it are the best possible witnesses to 
the wisdom of the board and liberal 
policy inaugurated by Mr. Walker. 

Mr. Walker has been annually elected 
President of the Library Board, from 
its organization, in 1885, to the present 
time. 

THE LIBERAL PROVISION FOR ART. 

in this building is also due to Mr. 
Walker's interest in and devotion to it. 
He has always been an ardent support- 
er of the art scliool, which is now so 
prominent among the educational insti- 
tutions of this city, and stands in the 
front rank among the art schools of 
the land. He has fostered the art school 
in various ways, and the finest speci- 
mens in its gallery are donations or 
loans from Mr. Walker's private collec- 
tion. 

His private gallery at his home is 
pronounced the choicest collection of its 
size in the United States. The fame of 
this gallery extends throughout the civi- 
lized world, and connoisseurs come 
from a long distance to gaze upon its 
wonderful beauties. This home gallery 
is kept open to the public on all days 
but Sunday, thus furnishing a center of 
art education which is highly ajjpreciat- 
ed by our people as well as by "the 
stranger within our gates." 

A love of the pure and beautiful is 
the crowning feature of Mr. Walker's 
great and manly nature, and the best di- 
rected energies of his whole life work 
has been in behalf of the elevation of 
his kind. 

Again we say: Keep this always good 
and genial spirit on the Library Board. 
His whole soul is in the work, and the 
best interests of our people in that 
which is pure and elevating demand it. 



A Minnesota Millionaire. 

"Yes," said the Minneapolis man at 
the Grand Pacific the other evening in 
conversation with a gentleman from the 
East. "We have a number of million- 
aires in our city, many of whom grew 
rich out of fortunate investments in 
pine lands. There is T. B. Walker, 
worth not less than ten millions. Eight- 
een years ago he came to Minneapolis 
and rented a little house on the East 
Side for $9.00 a month. Uj) to that 
time he had been a country school teach- 
er and had done some surveying. He 
took a contract to survey pine lands in 
Northern Minnesota, and being a smart, 
energetic fellow, took advantage of the 
situation, and with the aid of men of 
money whom he interested with him, 
he became the richest main in the State 
of Minnesota."— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 



MINUEAPOLIS, MINN., SATURDAY, DEC. 7. 1889. 



THOMAS B. WALKER 



A Representative Citizen and Leading Business Man. — A Lover of 
Literature, Student of Art, Liberal and Progressive. 



Were our citizens asked to name 
among the many enterprising business 
men of Minneapolis the one who is pre- 
eminently a leader in all matters per- 
taining to the progress of the city, nine 
out of ten would answer without hesi- 
tation "T. B. Walker." Modest and 
unassuming, easily approachable by all, 
with a clear head and a warm heart, Mr. 
Walker is one who is thoroughly appre- 
ciated at home and who is honored 
wherever he is known. 

Thomas B. Walker was born at Zenia, 
Ohio, Feb. 1, 1840. His father died in 
1849 and the family moved to Berea, 
where the lad did all possible to help 
keep the wolf from the door. There he 
secured the rudiments of an education. 
Slow to learn in some directions he had 
a keen grasp on facts and figures and 
came out solid on examinations. He 
was fond of mathematics and gave him- 
self up to a study of engineering, as- 
tronomy, etc. He came to Minnesota in 
1862. and followed surveying, and en- 
gineering. Incidentally ascertaining the 
extent and value of the fine body of 
pine timber in Northern Minnesota, he, 
together with other Minneapolis men, 
secured large tracts of them. 

In 1868 he formed with Dr. Levi But- 
ler and H. W. Mills the lumber firm of 
Butler, Mills & Walker, the firm con- 
tinuing until 1876, when with George A. 
Camp he bought the Pacific mills of J. 
Dean & Co. The firm of Camp & Walk- 
er continued until a late date, when Mr. 
Camp retired. Mr. Walker, besides 
manufacturing lumber here on a large 
scale, has operated extensively at 
Crookston and been interested in many 
other industrial ventures, not only in the 
line of lumber, but in other directions. 
Whenever meritorious manufacturing 
enterprise seeks to establish itself here, 
Mr. Walker's name is always found at 
the head of subscribers to its stock, so 
that his liberality and enterprise are well 
known and thoroughly appreciated. 

He wis the leading spirit of a project 
broached here some years ago to form 
a Business Men's Union to back up sub- 



stantially all worthy enterprises seeking 
sites here or desiring to sell stock in 
order to get a start. He saw the wis- 
dom of having a number of men repre- 
senting millions of capital to quietly in- 
vestigate the standing of men who de- 
sired to enlarge their business or start 
here new enterprises adding largely to 
our population and product. The pro- 
ject then defeated by one or two men 
is likely to be revived this year to the 
great advantage of all our property 
owners and citizens. 

While Mr. Walker is very enterpris- 
ing he is also wisely conservative. To 
him more than any other dozen men in 
Minneapolis is due the stemming of a 
tide of foolish and suicidal hostility 
towards the great Manitoba railroad, he 
helping to secure us the stone arch 
bridge. Union depot, etc. To close per- 
sonal friendship for Mr. Walker we 
may very largely attribute President 
Hill's late magnificent gift of some 
$100,000 worth of choice pictures of the 
library and art society boards, of both 
of which, Mr. Walker is president. 

His exact knowledge and conservative 
wisdom once saved to leading citizens 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. There 
was a gold craze here over certain dis- 
coveries in the Vermilion range. Mr. 
Walker with his knowledge of mineralo- 
gy and metallurgy saw at once that gold 
did not exist in extent to pay working. 

Those who think Mr. Walker's 
breadth of knowledge might imply su- 
perficiality are mistaken. When he 
takes up a subject he gives it his full 
attention and masters it. Thus he not 
only knows the principles of chemistry, 
but its practice from the elimination of 
oxygen to blowpipe analysis. Few 
would suspect it of so plain and so 
practical a man. but he is an expert in 
gems and is so recognized not only in 
the Northwest, but by leading lapida- 
ries in New York and Paris. 

His knowledge of art is critical and 
comprehensive. He has the best pri- 
vate are reference library in the west 
and a collection of pictures which in 
quality rank among the very best in 



the country. Among leading artists 
represented by choice pictures are 
Bouguereau, Diaz, Lefevre, De Nouy, 
Breton, Detaille and Schreyer. Many of 
these pictures have been loaned to the 
ExpositidU and in various ways have 
been enjoyed by the public. His splen- 
did collection is not the result of a 
"picturc-craze" such as often attacks 
millionaires. It grows out of the nature 
of Mr. Walker, and his love for the 
best in all lines. When too poor to buy 
oil paintings, he bought chromos, but 
they were the best. 

Mr. Walker is president of the library 
board and has contributed largely of his 
time and money to the free public libra- 
ry. He it was who by a liberal expendi- 
ture and much hard work broke the 
crust of conservatism in the old Athen- 
aeum library, and thereby paved the 
way to the present grand consummation 
of a triple union between the culture 
forces of literature, science and art in 
the public library building now about 
completed as mentioned elsewhere. 

As leading director and contributor 
to the Minnesota Academy of Sciences, 
Mr. Walker has been hardly less prom- 
inent. Besides liberal r^ifts to the 
science collection, he has on hand, ready 
for delivery, a complete set of the re- 
ports of the British Association from 
the beginning of its organization, with 
other valuable scientific books and peri- 
odicals. He is president of the Minne- 



apolis Society of Fine Arts and has done 
as much or m<jre than any member to 
promote its organization and success. 
He gave the use of the land for its tem- 
porary building and in many ways has 
aided it. And so we might continue, 
but we have said enough. 

As years have advanced he has been 
growing more critical as to art, more 
thorough as to science and practical 
affairs, more broad as to his views of 
life, more liberal as to the public, more 
lovable (if possible) in his perfect do- 
mestic relations, for Mr. Walker is not 
only well mated, but thoroughly married 
in full congeniality of mind and soul to 
a lady who came with him to Minneso- 
ta from Berea, Ohio., who has entered 
into all his studies, all his pleasures and 
all his work, who has given money and 
more precious time to the aid of the 
poor and the lowly, who has not been 
afraid to soil her skirts by lifting her 
fallen sister even from the gutters; who, 
full of the spirit of Christ and the love 
of humanity, has visited those who are 
sick and in prison and in any way afflict- 
ed or distressed. 

As she enters into all her husband's 
thought and action, so does he sympa- 
thize fully with her in all her work of 
benevolence and reform. They have five 
children, well educated and worthy of 
their honored parents. Fortunate is the 
city which possesses such citizens as 
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Walker. 



(Minneapolis Journal May 12, 1903.) 

T. B. Walker is reputed to be the 
richest man in Minnesota and his wealth 
is variously estimated at from $12,000,- 
000 to $16,000,000. It is pretty well un- 
derstood, at all events, that he could 
round up $10,000,000. Personally he is 
a very unassuming man, and his resi- 
dence at Eighth and Hennepin would 
never be taken as the home of a ten 
times millionaire. When he gets into 
his new home near Lowry's it may be 
different. Almost the only channel in 
which is wealth is run is in the line of 
pictures, for which he has a passion, and 
of which he is no mean critic. His gal- 
lery is probably the finest private one 
in the Northwest, and he is constantly 
adding to it. Mr. Walker came here as 
a civil engineer and got government 
contracts for subdividing pine lands. In 
this way he gathered valuable informa- 
tion of pine land, which he sold and 
thus got a start. Then he went in for 
himself on a gradually increasing scale 
until wealth began pouring in on him. 
He now cuts nearly all of the pine on 
the Red river valley. Several things 



are characteristic of the man. For in- 
stance, on the edges of his lawn he 
placed settees for the use of the tired 
public. Most people would have placed 
a barb wire fence about tlie lawn. It 
chanced once that Mr. Walker learned 
of a certain man in Wright county, in- 
dicted for murder, who was afterward 
convicted and sentenced to be hung. 
He heard certain facts that led him to 
believe the case was one of self-defense 
purely, so of his own notion he retained 
the best counsel, got a new trial and 
had the man triumphantly acquitted. 
That is T. B. Walker in a nutshell. 

T. B. Walker is of the class of 
wealthy men who are always at home to 
charity. When absent from home he 
leaves instructions that no person shall 
be turned from his door hungry, and 
the needy one is always certain to find 
at least 25 cents worth of sympathy 
at the Walker mansion. 

T. B. Walker receives from 10 to 45 
applications daily for assistance from 
needy persons. The charitable disposi- 
tion of this wealthy lumberman is the 
source of much annoyance to himself, 
but a boon to the needy. 



SEEING PICTURES. 



A Visit to the Gallery of Mr. T. B. 
Walker, Minneapolis. 

Rev. B. D. Hollington. 
(Northwestern Christian Advocate,) 

What's in a picture? "Nothing," says 
the clang of the wooden shoe, and it 
hurries past the "Mother and Babe." 
"Inexpressible sorrow, fathomless love," 
exclaims a devout soul that has been 
these days long gazing into the depths 
of the "Infant's eyes. 

What's in a picture? A symphony is 
a musical skeleton. The harmony and 
rhythm are the foundation on which 
the imagination is to build castles. If 
the imagination be dwarfed or dull or 
dead, music is monotony. 

What's in a picture? That's for us to 
say! As we walk around in this great 
gallery of the great Northwest it is the 
soul behind the eye that sees. The pic- 
ture is a window. Don't look at the 
glass and sash; see through the opening 
the wide vista painted by a great soul 
in the world beautiful with a message 
for you. Read up on pictures! If you 
are still in the milk stage you may read 
two or three "How to see pictures," 
"How to tell a good picture," and then 
for consistency's sake get a few more 
guides such as "How to see a sunset," 
"How to say your prayers," etc. Per- 
haps to direct adolescent fancy you may 
eat one of these "predigested art food 
tables," but when you come to mature 
judgment "forget 'em!" 

Get a catalog? Join the crowd of 
Chautauqua buzzers around "the fa- 
mous Professor *So and So' "? Open our 
mouths before the "little picture that 
cost $50,000"? Join the jam around the 
bell wether? Not if you wish to really 
see pictures. Like an Eastern crystal 
gazer, look on the picture until you 
are en rapport with its creator, till 
you see its soul, till you hear the music 
of it, then if you wish to know your 
friend's name you will find it in the 
catalog. 

But now to the picture! Why are 
these men staring so fiercely at this 
small man at the end of the table? In- 
stantly you remember the psychological 
trick in Rembrandt's "School of Anat- 
omy," how the gaze of the doctors fast- 
ens your interest on the dead body 
involuntarily. The man you look at is 
Charles I. He has received the news 
of the battle of Marston Moor. Poor, 
faded dandy, with blue velvet trousers 
and lace handkerchief in his boot. It 
was a crushing blow, not very crushing, 
for there was not a great deal to be 
crushed. How that "Roundhead," that 
"Commoner," must have jarred on the 
nerves and racked the sensibilities of 
this costumer's apology for a king. 



"History with all her volumes vast 
Hath but one page." 

When manhood goes to seed in sel- 
fishness or sensuality, God passes on 
the scepter to sturdier hands, which 
truth our Brother of the Micrometer 
calls the law of the survival of the fit- 
test. 

What fine fresh painting! We 
thought we had seen the acme of fresh 
representation in Denner's "Old Man" 
and "Old Woman" in Munich. Den- 
ner's painted flesh is dead; this is liv- 
ing, transparent skin. "An Old Woman 
at Her Prayers," it is called. Charles 
Wesley Sanderson, a Boston water col- 
orist, loved to interpret great paintings 
through music for his friends. This 
picture is Strauss's "Symphony Dnnies- 
tique" in flesh and blood. WrinK-les 
that are heart scars, veins that flow 
tardily in the blue tinged lips, the little 
film over the eye that is creeping also 
over the soul, those darkened finger 
nails, carefully cleaned, battered, 
bruised, and split. This "Old Woman" 
is a multimother. The glad smile in 
her prayer reminds you of the Sistine 
"Madonna." All mothers must grieve 
this way. The "Symphony Domes- 
tique" becomes most often the "Sym- 
phony Pathetique" but while love lasts 
it never ceases to be a symphony. 

Holbein's portrait of Henr}' VIII, 
label it, "Oh, that this too, too solid 
flesh would melt, dissolve itself." A 
mountain of sense, culminating, no, just 
ending in a head, a pyramid of flesh 
with the apex under the crown! Ten- 
nyson has defined the portraiture: 

"As when a painter, poring on a face, 
Divinely through all hindrance finds 

the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his 

face, 
The shape and color of a mind and 

life, 
Live for those after him, ever at its 

best." 

"Ever at its best," there's the rub. 
Ingres has painted the Caesar in Napo- 
leon, firm, finely chiseled mouth and 
chin, strong, deep-rooted nose, a brow 
to command, a laurel crown, every inch 
a king. But Lefevre has painted a real 
man Nepoleon. This was Napoleon's 
favorite picture of himself, presented to 
one of his field marshals. It is a "vie 
intime," the secret life of the great 
Corsican. Olympian brow, character 
nose, but the mouth of a very human 
man. There is no other mouth of Na- 
poleon like this. It betrays the man; 
it is the history of his little weaknesses. 

Jules Breton, a small man, with black 
hair down to his shoulders, with a tear 
on his cheek, pleaded, "It pleases me 
not to have my picture go to America." 
Of all Breton's pictures this is the best 
we have seen, this "Evening Call." Mil- 




Ro|ir<i(liM-ti4in trimi plioloursiiili taken of Mr. T. II. AValkcr in ISSM. 

I n<m1 (o illii.slrato arliclcM tlial aiipoaroil in llic followiiiu' pnblioatiuuM: 

'l"li«' l*r«(m«'s.s. >linn«-a|M>liN. 

InthiNl rial American, >linii<-a|M>liN. 

The MlMMi.sMipiti \ alley l.uinlK'rinaii, .MiniieapoliM, 



let and Breton did not live in the same 
world. Millet's "Sower," "Man With a 
Hoe," "Cleaners." they are heavy, ani- 
mated clods, crushed until tliey are part 
of the eartli. This woman calling, this 
one waving her sickle in Breton's 
"Call," are lithe, vigorous, strong, hope- 
ful, and the blue haze of falling evening 
is a fllmy, beautiful veil, not the deadly 
pall of Millet's night. 

Millet had the weight of woe around 
him on his heart; he will not flinch 
until he has told the world. Vuillefroy 
carried the "Angelus" up to Paris to 
sell it for $400. offered it for $200. and 
carried it back to tell Millet he would 
have to starve a little longer. What 
sentimental fools you and your wife 
are. Millet, to leave the pot-boiling 
nudes in Paris just to tell the story 
of poor peasants. You might have had 
a comfortable home and been admired 
by barkeeps and the demimonde, and 
now you go down to history as merely 
"the painter of the people." Perhaps, 
however, when "the people" come into 
their own you may get your crown. 

Breton is only reconciled to lose his 
loved dream when he knows that his 
daughter's masterpiece. "Her Man is on 
the Sea." is to be with his "Evening 
Call." Demont-Breton has shown the 
wife of a sailor, >\'ith baby asleep on 
her arm, sitting before the fire. She 
has painted the unutterable loneliness 
of the weary, waiting, and watching for 
him who may not come back. The sad, 
longing, far-away look, the lining of the 
mouth's corners in sorrow too deep for 
words. How a human soul may suffer! 
The great suffering is spiritual, not 
physical. 

If you can, meet the man who has 
collected this great gallery, great be- 
cause it represents almost every school, 
and there is not in it all one spurious 
picture or one poor picture. Bonds and 
buildings, forests and mills, this is the 
game that he plays, but plays it as a 
Christian gentleman should. Libraries, 
hospitals and churches, these are his 
duty to humanity. But this beautifully 
brilliant gallery, this is his love. 

A Christian gentleman, and spend 
such a fortune on his own luxurious 
enjoyment? you ask. Yes, a Christian 
gentleman, for he only gets that he may 
give. He gave all his pictures to me. 
Half-way across Lake Superior in a fog 
I close my eyes in my cabin and I am 
back again with them all before my 
soul. I thank him for making the col- 
lection, but the pictures are always for- 
ever mine. "When a person becomes a 
part of you, then you love," says Hugo. 
When you have really seen a picture it 
becomes a part of you. He gives this 
collection daily to his own city, and 
all day long men and women arc ac- 
centing his free gift. Two hours I 
spent with a man in a blue blouse of a 



mechanic, but no refinement of color or 
form escaped his apprehension and ap- 
preciation, and turning at the door he 
feelingly said, "But the best thing about 
this is that this fellow don't keep this 
all to himself but lets us all own it." 
When you go to Minneapolis, and it 
would pay you to go even for this one 
thing, forget ncjt to see this beautiful 
])alace f)f art. 



RECALLS EARLY DAYS AT HEAD 
OF LAKES. 



T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis, Who As- 
sisted in Survey of the Lake Superior 
&Mississippi Line. Tries to Locate 
Landmark in Duluth Without Success 
— Heavy Owner of Timber and Iron 
Ore Lands. 
(News Tribune, Duluth, Aug. 3, '05.) 

One of the heaviest timber owners 
in the United States and one of the 
most interesting pioneers of Minnesota 
as well as one of its most active busi- 
ness men, is T. B. Walker, of Minne- 
apolis, who is now in Duluth on a com- 
bined business and pleasure trip, a guest 
at the Spalding. Mr. Walker helped to 
survey the first line of railroad to build 
into Dakota, the old Lake Superior & 
Mississippi, better known as the St. 
Paul & Duluth, and now known as the 
Northern Pacific shortline between the 
head of the lakes and the Twin Cities. 
In an interview last evening Mr. Walk- 
er said: 

"The survey of the old St. Paul & 
Duluth line from St. Paul and Minne- 
apolis to Duluth was made in 1866. H. 
A. Johnson was the chief engineer and 
A. L. Thornton and myself were assist- 
ant engineers. Nelson Miller, for years 
chief engineer of the Great Northern 
road, was then rodman in our crew. 

"At that time there were but half a 
dozen houses in Duluth. One of these 
was the land office. I tried to locate 
the site today but was unsuccessful, 
and shall try again. I tried to raise 
the money in 1866 to buy a couple of 
forties situated along the level area 
through which Superior street runs, 
but was unsuccessful. The property at 
that time could have been purchased 
for $20 an acre per forty and even less 
if both forties were taken. I remember 
the late Commodore Saxton very well. 
He was a director of the first railroad 
into Duluth that I have described, and 
was one of the best promotors of a 
road that has to be built without money 
or credit that I ever saw. 

"Duluth is going to become a large 
and important city. The census returns 
of this place will ever show increased 
population. Duluth is here to stay, 
and among some of your most promi- 
nent and valued citizens are some men 



that came here years ago upon my ad- 
vice. 

"Your main street is so situated that 
it will ever be a center of business, 
and new structures should be fireproof 
and modern. They should be provided 
with foundations that will make it pos- 
sible to add to their height in future 
years." 

Mr. Walker is owner of one half of 
what are known as the Hill ore lands 
on the Western Mesaba, J. J. Hill own- 
ing the other half. The whole tract 
was his originally but he sold a half 
interest to Harry Roberts and others, 
and they in turn to the railway mag- 
nate. 

The lands are located between 
Prairie River and Swan Lake and round 
Bovey. Mr. Walker says that he has 
received many applications from men 
who wish to secure options for leases 
to explore his lands, but that he has 
done nothing as yet. Later he expects 
to make some leases. He is a former 
owner of the Diamond mine on the 
western Mesaba, now owned in fee by 
the Oliver Iron Mining company. He 
says that he sold the fee of the land on 
which the Diamond is located for one 
dollar an acre. Iron deposits were not 
suspected at that time. 

Mr. Walker's principal timber inter- 
ests are now in California. He says 
that he is planning to build logging rail- 
roads and mills in that state, and begin 
extensive manufacturing operations. 
Mr. Walker declares that the owners of 
pine lands in Minnesota have been 
taxed so high that it became necessary 
for them to cut oflF the timber to pre- 
vent it being eaten up in that manner. 
At least that was his experience. 

It may be of interest to add that Mr. 
Walker is the owner of one of the 
finest picture galleries in the United 
States. 



TIMBER TABLES. 



Tabulated by T. B. Walker and The 
Mississippi Lumberman. 

(Herald, Aberdeen, Wash., Jan. 2, 1905.) 
T. B. Walker, the Minnesota lumber- 
man, who has been gathering statistics 
on the visible supply of lumber in the 
United States, has recently published 
his findings. In the whole country, 
there are 1,000,000,000.000 feet of stand- 
ing timber, and of this 625.000,000,000 
feet are in California. Oregon and 
Washington. Of this Oregon has 225,- 
000.000,000 feet and Washington and 
California 200,000.000,000 feet each. 

Tlie census of 1900 shows that 26,000,- 
000,000 feet of lumber were cut that 
vear. To this Mr. Walker adds 3.000,- 
000,000 feet cut into shingles, railroad 
ties, i^iles and the like, which makes 
29,000,000,000 feet cut annually, and the 
rate of cutting it is constantly on the in- 



crease. At this rate, in less than thirty- 
five years the visible supply of timber in 
the United States will have been ex- 
hausted. 

The three Pacific states have more 
than half the standing timber of the 
country and this explains why railroads 
are seeking routes into the timber belts 
of hitherto considered inaccessible dis- 
tricts. The best timber of the other 
states of the country is practically all 
cut down, while the forests of the three 
Pacific states are comparatively un- 
touched. America has not yet learned 
to do without timber; it must be sup- 
i^lied from somewhere; and California, 
Oregon and Washington are the states 
of the nation best prepared to furnish it. 
Statements on that standing in the 
great lumber states show the rapidity 
with which it has been cut off. Michi- 
gan has but 4,000,000,000 feet standing, 
Wisconsin 30,000,000,000, and Minnesota, 
35,000,000,000, while Maine, the train- 
ing school of American lumbermen, has 
but 8,000,000,000 feet. 

It may be, however, that 625,000,000,- 
000 feet of standing timber in the Pacific 
Coast states is more valuable to the 
country standing than the dollars and 
cents that in the next quarter of a 
century will be sent here for it. But 
the effect that the denuding of the 
Western hills is to have upon the coun- 
try will be but slightly taken into con- 
sideration by those intent upon exploit- 
ing the western forests. Commerce and 
industry demand the timber. The de- 
mand will be honored. The dreamer 
and the scientist may regret in this 
generation. Practical men of affairs, 
however, will reserve their regrets for 
the next. 



T. B. Walker to Build Structure on 
Third Avenue North, Near Lyndale. 

(Tribune, Minneapolis, Sep. 17, '05.) 

The largest wholesale furniture house 
in the state will be in operation in^fin- 
neapolis just as soon as the building 
can be completed to house the business. 

Leon Hartman, ])roprietor of the big 
furniture house of that name, which has 
been operating in a retail way in Min- 
neapolis for nearly a year, is in the city, 
and has completed arrangements for an 
immense wholesale branch, and T. B, 
Walker is to build the structure which 
shall be the home of Hartman's whole- 
sale plant. 

■'We have been in Minneapolis long 
enough to test its value as a trade cen- 
ter," said Mr. Hartman, speaking of 
the new venture. We have secured an 
ideal location, and Mr. Walker will 
build us just the kind of a building we 
want. It will be built for us and will 
be one of the most handy wholesale 
furniture buildings in the country, and 
will be the largest and most complete 
in the state. 



SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA, DECEMBER 20, 1903. 

Lifeof T.B.Walker. 



It is an undeniable fact that the vast 
natural wealth of California has met 
with a more intelligent appreciation by 
the Eastern visitor than by our own 
people. This is true of our mines, our 
agricultural lands, and especially of our 
redwood and pine forests. 

In connection with the pine timber 
interests of California the principal per- 
son now in the field as owner and pros- 
pective producer of lumber in these 
Sierra forests is Mr. T. B. Walker, of 
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Mr. Walker began five or six years 
ago purchasing timber land in Siskiyou 
and Shasta counties. Afterward he ex- 
tended his holdings well into Modoc 
and through Lassen and into Plumas 
counties. Entering upon this timber 
purchasing after the most careful exam- 
ination, extending over several years, of 
the whole Coast timber forests, and 
having sufficient means to carry out a 
large project, he entered upon the de- 
sign of purchasing large areas — in fact, 
practically all the available timber on 
the Pitt River and down through into 
the Big Meadows region, upon the pre- 
sumption and understanding that large 
holdings would be absolutely essential 
to make a successful lumber operation 
in that rather remote timber. 

Mr. Walker has been looked upon as 
one of the most successful and capable 
timbermen in the United States. Hav- 
ing for many years worked most suc- 
cessfully in the timber of Minnesota, 
he came to California and entered upon 
this project, which at that time no 
other of the lumbermen could be found 
to undertake. While it was at first 
thought that he was erratic, it is now 
conceded that his plans are not only 
practicable, but will develop into the 
most valuable timber operations on the 
Coast. In describing the pine timber 
interests in California, the leading factor 
is the holdings of Mr. Walker, and 
while it was originally supposed to be 
very remote and inaccessible, yet a bet- 
ter acquaintance with the country shows 
that transportation lines for lumbering 
purposes and for handling the large lo- 
cal trade can be readily reached from 
the East through a section of Nevada 
to the Central Pacific south on any one 
of several lines, or westward into the 
Sacramento Valley. 



It is not known how soon develop- 
ments will be made reaching this tim- 
ber region, but it is probable that it 
will be undertaken during the coming 
year. These lumber plants when estab- 
lished will be on a large scale — larger 
than has heretofore been done by any 
firms in the state. The holdings of tim- 
ber are so large that a continuous run 
of fifty years on a large scale will not 
exhaust the first cut of the timber. 
And under the program proposed by 
Mr. Walker, which will probably be fol- 
lowed up by whoever may succeed him, 
the large trees will be cut, and then, 
by protecting the smaller trees from 
destruction or damage by fire, a sec- 
ond cutting in the next thirty, forty or 
fifty years may be made in the same 
way, leaving another equally numerous 
smaller growth of timber for a future 
supply. It is the intention to establish 
permanent lumber plants, unless by 
some means of excessive taxation a 
change of program is necessitated, 
under which the timber will be more 
rapidly and completely removed. 

The foregong facts were obtained by 
a Bulletin reporter in course of a con- 
versation with Mr. Walker at his hotel. 
Notwithstanding the vast interests that 
he controls, East and West, he is the 
most unassuming of men. Fraught 
with immense possibilities of good to 
the industries of California as has been 
the advent of Mr. Walker to the state 
one would also like to speak of him as 
a philanthropist, an author and an art 
connoisseur, as well as a business man 
and financier. In the business life of 
the Northwest he stands as a leader, 
but his mind is not confined to business 
alone, for he impresses the listener with 
the philosophic character of his mind 
and his literary bent. All these have 
contributed to his success in building 
up the moral and material interests of 
his town and State. 

As early as 1868, in company with two 
others, he began to exploit the lumber 
regions. Wiseacres predicted disaster 
for the enterprise, but it was worked 
out with his usual sagacity and fore- 
sight. His system was so thorough 
that he knew the exact value of every 
acre taken up, and success followed. 

Where he is best known the convic- 
tion is settled that his methods, origi- 



nal and daring, founded on principles of 
honor, compelled success. People soon 
came to see that this man's word once 
given was sacred. His vast investments 
in the choice sugar pine and yellow 
pine timber of this State will remain a 
monument to his far-seeing genius, for 
it is regarded by expert judges as the 
finest body of timber land in the world. 
He is devoting a great deal of his time 
now to his interests in this State, while 
in Northern Minnesota he has mills 
running summer and winter day and 
night. 

In Minneapolis an extensive city mar- 
ket and commission district has been 
built up by Mr. Walker, and consti- 
tutes one of the most important enter- 
prises in the city, as it has no superior 
in the country, and has placed Min- 
neapolis the third or fourth city in the 
United States in the extent of its com- 
mission business in vegetables, fruit 
and dairy products and miscellaneous 
provisions. The business located there 
surpasses that transacted in any other 
city in the United States, with the ex- 
ception, perhaps, of only two — Chicago 
and New York. 

He has probably expended more 
money for the development of Minne- 
apolis by far than any other citizen. 
He organized the Business Men's 
Union, which for a number of years 
was very helpful in attracting capital 
and attention to Minneapolis and build- 
ing up its industries. 

A writer conversant with the facts 
says: "Although Mr. Walker's financial 
success has been phenomenal and he is 
classed among the most substantial men 
in the Northwest, it is hardly here that 
his strength of character is most con- 
spicuous. He has been first and fore- 
most among those who believe that 
common humanity is entitled to more 
than it is getting; and while what he 
has done is called charity, he does not 
believe that he has done any more than 
any other man in his position ought or 
should. For instance, when our Central 
Market burned a few years ago, leaving 
a whole block in area filled in a large 
part with all manner of vegetable pro- 
duce and provisions that demanded im- 
mediate removal to prevent its becom- 
ing a nuisance, Mr. Walker directed Mr. 
Gorhani, his real estate man and build- 
ing rnanager, to employ a large force of 
men immediately and remove this waste 
material from under the great mass of 
fallen bricks and stone. He directed 
that good wages should be paid. The 
next day, upon inquiry as to the wages 
that tlic men were promised, he was 
told it was a dollar a day, and he then 
asked if his manager thought that men 
with families could live on a dollar a 
day. The reply was that he did not 
think that it was a relevant question, 
as the employer was not supposed to 



be responsible for the maintaining of 
men's families, and with the further 
statement that Elevator A, which had 
just burned a few days before, almost 
within sight of the city market, had 
three hundred rnen at work who were 
receiving only eighty cents a day, and 
hundreds more were seeking employ- 
ment at that rate, so that the dollar a 
day was higher than the customary 
wages. But Mr. Walker insisted that 
the pay should be a dollar and a quar- 
ter a day, and that contractors who 
were digging foundations for commis- 
sion houses should also be required in 
their contracts to pay a dollar and a 
quarter a day to their men, and the con- 
tractors charged extra price on this ac- 
count." 

Minneapolis is largely indebted to 
Mr. Walker for its fine Public Library, 
ranging about fourth or fifth among 
the cities of the United States in its 
circulation. A short time after he ar- 
rived in Minneapolis he joined the 
Athenaeum Library Association. Hav- 
ing found a couple of memberships at 
a specially low price, he purchased the 
two, one for himself and one for his 
wife. He worked in this way for many 
years, drifting toward a more liberal 
policy and larger usefulness, until final- 
ly, in large part through his instrumen- 
tality, the library act was passed, estab- 
lishing the Public Library, and to place 
within it the books of the Athenaeum 
as a permanent home, as well as the 
art gallery under the management of 
the art society and museum of the 
Academy of Science. Mr. Walker has 
been re-elected president annually for 
the past eighteen years from the date 
of the formation of the board. He has 
been the principal patron of the Acad- 
emy of Science, having done more than 
others to develop and build up the col- 
lection and maintain the interest in the 
scientific work of the society. From 
various remarks and pointers given out 
by Mr. Walker, it has been known that 
he has intended at some time to build 
in Minneapolis an art institute and mu- 
seum. 

A recent writer says of him : 

"Mr. Walker believes firmly that 
every man should have a strong per- 
sonal interest in the good of the coun- 
try, and that every one should pay the 
same attention which he gives to his 
own business to it. 

"In personal appearance Mr. Walker 
is a well-proportioned man of a trifle 
over the average height. His face has 
an exceedingly kindly appearance; that 
of a man who could well be entrusted 
with anything, and who would faith- 
fully abide by the trust. Were it not 
for a tinge of gray in his hair and 
beard, no one would believe that he 
was over forty years old. as he has the 
active movements of a young man and 



every gesture shows the vigor of the 
early prime of life. 

"The walls of the library in which he 
has his office are lined with book cases 
which groan under the weight of books 
fit to make the heart of a bookworm 
full of envy. Works an all subjects by 
the best authors; religion, art, science, 
poetry, fiction, philosophy, and every 
possible subject, are among them. 
They are not there for looks alone, as 
their owner is better acquainted with 
their contents than with their exteriors. 

"Besides his valuable library, there 
is in the house a collection of paintings, 
and bronzes and rugs, said to be the 
finest private collection in the world. 
A gallery of six large rooms accommo- 
dates on its walls gems from the hands 
of the world's most famous masters of 
painting. In the bronze room are val- 
uable Chinese and Japanese bronzes, 
ivory carvings, glassware from all over 
the world. Most men would keep their 
magnificent works of art under lock 
and key, and admit only their most 
intimate friends. But this man is of a 
different stamp. Absolutely without a 
selfish thought, he throws the door of 
his home wide open to the world, and 
invites all to come and enjoy these 
things with him. The gallery has be- 
come a mine for tourists, and none 
leaves Minneapolis without going there. 
His enjoyment comes entirely from the 
pleasure which he can give others with 
the means at his command. Besides 
this, he has loaned a part of his collec- 
tion to the public, and the library build- 
ing now contains them. The remark- 
able feature of this art collection is 
that by common consent of all the best 
judges from all parts of the world it 
stands alone in being without a single 
commonplace or mediocre painting. 
Every picture on the wall is of the 
highest type of the painter's art, and 
worthy of a place in any collection in 
the world. In this respect it is differ- 
ent from all other galleries, as anyone 
is challenged to point to either a pub- 
lic or private gallery in this country or 
Europe that does not contain unworthy 
paintings on its walls. Mr. Walker 
is looked upon by the art dealers as 
the only one who makes no mistakes 
in the selection, as even the commit- 
tees of a number of diflferent judges 
in the public libraries make repeated 
mistakes by selecting large proportions 
of paintings that are not of interest 
and of high art value. 

"Another token of his consideration 
for others is in the benches which are 
set on the sidewalk around the grounds 
of his home. There wearv pedestrians 
may sit and rest themselves comfort- 
ably under the shade of beautiful trees. 

"The money which he has given 
away in charity will not be known. He 
has always obeyed the Biblical injunc- 



tion, and never let his left hand know 
that which the right hand did. How 
many poor people have been relieved 
in their anxieties by him, both with 
cheering words and assistance, how 
many saved through his help, will never 
be counted. Every public movement has 
received his help, whether it was the 
Young Men's Christian Association, in 
whose councils he stands high, or a 
movement on the part of the labor 
element to build a hall. He has la- 
bored hard for the cause of education, 
and displayed an active interest in the 
educational progress of the world." 

It has been frequently remarked by 
workingmen and amongst the socialists 
and discontented element that if all em- 
ployers were as inclined to use em- 
ployes well there would be no socialism 
or necessity for strikes, as Mr. Walker 
has never had a strike in his extensive 
handling of men, as in his business 
interests have required the help of 
thousands of men in conducting his en- 
terprises, and every one who has been 
with him once is glad to return to his 
employ again. He has the esteem and 
good will of all classes, and it is a 
partial key to his success, as his busi- 
ness flourishes and develops largely 
through the good will and patronage 
of others. 

Many of the boys who came out of 
the State Reform School have good 
cause to remember the name of Mr. 
Walker, as that of the man who be- 
friended them when they were in that 
institution, of which he was a trustee 
for many years. His services on the 
board were highly appreciated by the 
inmates and his associates. 

Mr. Walker built his residence in 
Minneapolis in 1874, where he has since 
resided. The Walker homestead is one 
of the happiest of homes. Mr. Wal- 
ker's private office is in the library of 
the home, where a large table, covered 
with papers of all sorts, serves as his 
desk. And yet all these papers are not 
business documents. There is not a 
charitable institution in the Northwest 
that cannot number Mr. Walker among 
its most liberal contributors. There 
is not a public meeting held at which 
he does not receive an invitation to at- 
tend and speak. Pamphlets, religious, 
sociological, political, hygienic, sound, 
many of which have been compiled by 
this lumber king. His writings are 
much in demand, as he has a clear, 
crisp and concise way of putting things 
that appeal particularly to every lover 
of good writing. As an exponent of 
the doctrines of the Republican party, 
he has been called upon time and 
again to help along with his pen the 
good cause, and the clear manner in 
which he handles the most profound 
questions has been a surprise to poli- 
ticians. No one, a few years ago, ex- 



pected that the great lumber merchant 
was paying any attention to poli- 
tics, until he began to fulminate his 
truths and carried consternation to the 



ranks of the opposition. His knowl- 
edge of political economy is profound, 
and not only that of his country, but 
of all times and places. 



ONE LUMBER KING WHO IS NOT IN TRUST. 



T. B. Walker of Minnesota Declares No Timber Combine in 
the North Could Control World's Supply. 



(San Francisco Bulletin, Dec. 5, 1903.) 



T. B. Walker, the Minnesota lumber 
king, who owns half of northern Cali- 
fornia, arrived at the Occidental this 
morning, accompanied by B. F. Nelson, 
of Minneapolis. The Walker tracts in 
this State extend over five counties, 
Siskiyou, Modoc, Lassen, Shasta and 
Plumas counties, and the forests owned 
by the Minnesota millionaire cover sev- 
eral hundred thousand acres. He has 
just come from an inspection trip over 
his domain, and will be in this city sev- 
eral days before proceeding east. 

Mr. Walker's wealth is estimated at 
thirty millions, but he is as simple in 
his manner as are most of the great 
financiers of the West. The only evi- 
dence of affluence is a diamond shirt- 
stud of amazing proportions. 

Several months ago T. B. Walker was 
named as one of those interested with 
James J. Hill, the Weyerhausers of St. 
Paul, and E. H. Harriman, in forming a 
trust to control the lumber supply of 
the world. This morning Mr. Walker 
said that he personally is not interested 
in a timber trust, and that as a matter 
of fact there is no timber combine. 

"I don't own a single foot of lumber 
with Hill, the Weyerhausers, Hammond 
or any other man," he said. "My inter- 
ests are all my own, and I have never 
had five minutes' conversation about 
timber with Mr. Harriman. There is 
in reality no such lumber trust and there 
is not likely to be one." 

Further than this Mr. Walker de- 
clared that Hill has no use for Califor- 
nia. When Harriman and the Santa Fe 
awoke to the traffic possibilities in the 
great forests of Humboldt it was said 
James J. Hill was eager to extend the 
Great Northern into California in order 
to secure a share of the immense timber 
traffic of the State. It was stated that 
T. B. Walker would aid and abet him 
in his ambition, and that relying on the 
friendly interests of the man who owns 
five counties. Hill would build a branch 
of the Great Northern to secure the 
traffic of that district. It was even 
said that Hill's surveyors had proceed- 
ed across the Oregon line and were 
surveying in California. But according 



to Mr. Walker, the Northern financier 
has no intention of extending his sphere 
to the south. 

"Hill is not coming into California, 
and I don't want him to," said Mr. 
Walker. "The Great Northern has all 
the business it needs in the north with- 
out building down into this State, and 
Hill has no intention of extending his 
interests to California to get traffic for 
his road. 

"There is more timber cut in the 
north now than the roads can handle 
and California lumber doesn't want to 
go north anyway. I want to place my 
product in the Mississippi Valley. I 
don't want to send it north to Minne- 
sota or Montana, where there is plenty. 
However, that is a matter for the future. 
I have no mills here and am not manu- 
facturing lumber in California at pres- 
ent. 

"My trip was not for the purpose of 
establishing mills. It was simply to 
take a look over the land. Tiinber 
tracts are good things to hold. Lum- 
bermen often make the mistake of cut- 
ting all their timber and then having it 
on their hands. There is no need to 
rush matters. The future development 
of this coast country promises to be 
immense, and there is plenty of time 
ahead to manufacture lumber. In the 
meanwhile it does very well in forests." 

B. F. Nelson, who is traveling with 
Mr. Walker, is a millionaire of Minne- 
apolis, where he has an art gallery 
built in his home that is the pride of the 
Northwest. It contains many works of 
the old masters and the collection is 
valued at a million dollars. 



T. B. Walker gives it out that Central 
Market will be rebuilt larger and better 
than before the fire. It will be impos- 
sible to complete the structure this 
winter, but enough will be built to fur- 
nish the dealers in meats, flour, etc., ac- 
commodations. With his usual charac- 
teristic for generosity, and a desire to 
aid the suffering and distressed, Mr. 
Walker sent $1,000 to the people who 
lost their all in the recent fires. 

St. Louis Park Mail, Sept. 5. 1894. 



THE MCSTNEAPOUS JOURNAL. 



IIMNEAPOLIS. MINM.. APRIL 21, 1906. 



BUTLER BRO S. COME TO MINNEAPOLIS. 

One of the Largest Jobbing Companies in America Selects This City 
as Center of the Great Northwest. 

H. A. Stillwell, managing director of 
Butler Brothers of Chicago, New York 
and St. Louis, will be in Minneapolis 
Monday to close with T. B. Walker 
the final arrangements for the construc- 
tion in Minneapolis of a mammoth job- 
bing building to be occupied by the 
northwestern extension of the Butler 
Brothers' business, one of the largest 
general jobbing interests in the coun- 
try. The agreement will call for the 
construction by Mr. Walker of a mod- 
ern nine-story and basement building 
on Sixth street, between First and Sec- 
ond avenues N., at a cost of $550,000. 
The value of the property is placed 
at $200,000, making the full amount in- 
volved in the transaction $750,000. 

The conclusion of the arrangements 
between Mr. Stillwell and Mr. Walker 
will close one of the hardest fought 
and most aggressive campaigns ever 
put up for Minneapolis and brings to 
grief the hopes of St. Paul. Thru Mr. 
Walker, who was able to make as a 
single individual a proposition covering 
both the land and the desired building, 
and because of the vigorous campaign 
put up by the Commercial Club and a 
committee of prominent business inter- 
ests, success came to Minneapolis. 
Four Large Houses. 

The Butler Brothers Company have 
three houses, headquarters at Chicago 
and branches in New York and St. 
Louis. They do a general merchandise 
jobbing business, amounting last year 
to $80,000,000, their business being dis- 
tributed all over the United States. The 
establishment in Minneapolis of the 
fourth house will secure for the city an 
incalculable prestige as the coming city 
and jobbing center of the northwest. 

The building to be erected for the 
company by Mr. Walker will be the 
largest in the twin cities occupied by 
a single mercantile company and will 
have 513,000 square feet of floor space. 
From $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 is con- 
sidered a conservative estimate of the 
amount of business that will be done 
thru this branch. From 500 to 600 per- 
sons will be employed in the various 
departments. The annual rental of the 
property will amount to $66,000. 
Future Benefits. 

The immediate benefits, however, are 



almost insignificant when compared to 
the future benefits that the city will re- 
ceive thru the establishment of the But- 
ler company. The advent of the Butler 
company, in addition to the large num- 
ber of strong interests already estab- 
lished here, marks Minneapolis as the 
future jobbing center of the northwest, 
and other large concerns looking for 
openings in the territory cannot fail to 
be attracted by the superior advantages 
offered by Minneapolis. With the es- 
tablishment of the commercial and job- 
bing prestige of Minneapolis will come 
the correction of any existing commer- 
cial evils, more noticeably railroad dis- 
crimination, which have existed hereto- 
fore. With the immense shipping in- 
terests of Minneapolis banded together 
for the betterment of conditions and 
because of the competition existing 
between the railroads, all problems of 
transportation will be speedily solved. 

(New York World, June 10, 1905.) 
The richest man in Minneapolis is 
probably T. B. Walker, who is a lum- 
berman. He owned about all of the 
white pine in northern Minnesota, 
where the last forest of white pine in 
the United States is being cut and 
slashed by 30,000 men today, and he 
made millions out of it. He also owns 
miles and miles of timber lands in Cali- 
fornia and is building a railroad 300 
miles long to get the lumber out. That 
is the kind of a hustler Walker is. He 
is of the west western. 



SALARIES RAISED. 

The Walker Mill Management Surprise 
Their Employes. 

MEN GIVEN AN ADVANCE. 

Those Drawing $1.25 Raised to $1.40 
per day — Unexpected. 

A couple of weeks ago some of the 
men who were engaged at the Red Riv- 
er Lumber company's mill, and who re- 
ceived $1.25 per day, became dissatisfied 
and wanted a raise to $1.50 per day. 
The matter was discussed pretty thor- 
oughly among themselves, and finally 
Mr. T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis, was 



informed of the matter. He at once 
notified the official here that owing to 
the dullness of the lumber market the 
salaries could not be advanced, much 
as he would like to do so. Mr. Gilbert 
Walker was here last week and reiterat- 
ed the same statement and it was under- 
stood that if the demand was insisted 
upon that the mill would be closed 
down. While here Mr. Walker looked 
into the wage matter pretty thoroughly. 
The men finally decided that it was bet- 
ter to work for $1.25 per day than not 
work at all, and the matter was dropped. 
This morning they were agreeably sur- 



prised when they were approached by 
Superintendent March, who read them 
a letter from Mr. Walker, Sr., which 
contained the statement that their wag- 
es were increased to $1.40 a day. He 
added that he was very sorry that he 
could not raise it to $2.00. The informa- 
tion and raise of salary was a complete 
surprise to the men, who had only a few 
day ago come to the conclusion to stick 
at the old salary. As a consequence 
they are working today with renewed 
vigor, and are glad that they did not in- 
sist on the raise then by walking out. 
— Crookston Daily News, Aug. 11, 1894. 



A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR. 



Worthy Minneapolis Citizen Who is Spending the Day in Town. 



(News, Aberdeen, S. D., June 20, 1904.) 



T. B. Walker, the Minneapolis mil- 
lionaire lumberman, who spoke on the 
subject of the Y. M. C. A., remained 
over to visit in the city today. Mr. 
Walker is a member of the internation- 
al committee of the Y. M. C. A., and 
while devoting much time to the in- 
terests of the association in Minne- 
apolis, he has found time to give to 
many other movements, and has been 
one of the promoters of the great public 
library of that city. He also maintains 
a free art gallery containing one of the 
finest collections of paintings in Ameri- 
ca. By some his collection is con- 
sidered superior to the famous Corco- 
ran collection in Washington, and ahead 
of any of the private galleries of New 
York. The gallery is built in connec- 
tion with his home, and is visited by 
thousands from every section of Ameri- 
ca and other lands. 

"It seemed to me," said the million- 
aire lumberman in discussing his first 
job with The Daily News, "as if all 
the treasures in the world and all the 
promise the future held out for me 
were centered in the pine forests of 
Minnesota. To have allowed the op- 
portunities T had then to pass would 
have meant failure." 

But he had not the money nor the 
financial backing then to buy a section 
of timber claims; his father was com- 
fortably situated, but by no means a 
man of wealth. 

He looked for an opportunity to get 
into the timber belt, and finally joined 
a government survey party, and spent 
a year with it in the forests. At the 
end of that time he had mapped out 
his business career. 

What little money he could spare he 
invested in pine timber, and thus laid 



the foundation for his present fortune. 

Let no one imagine that he bought 
up 500 or 600 acres at a time, for he 
did not. His capital was almost an 
unknown quantity, but his keen fore- 
sight, his rare judgment and, above all, 
his determination to grasp the oppor- 
tunity when it first showed itself, made 
his resources count. 

Today no man owns so much pine 
timber in Minnesota as this grind- 
stone salesman. Today he sits in his 
office and conducts a million dollar busi- 
ness. 

Fate, chance or circumstances did not 
bring him his start. He faced greater 
difficulties than does the young man 
of today. He worked on his own claims; 
cut down his own timber; transported 
the logs on ox teams; erected his own 
mills — in short, he laid the foundation 
for his own success. 

He succeeded, because in the days 
when he was selling grandstones he 
saw the opportunity of his lifetime in 
the timber forests of Minnesota, and 
had the grit, courage and lasting deter- 
mination to "fight it to a finish." 



WALKER IS URGED FOR 
THE SENATE. 

Times, Minneapolis, Minn. Mar. 2, 1905. 
Friends of T. B. Walker are urging 
him to enter the race for the seat in 
the senate now occupied by Senator 
Moses E. Clapp. whose successor will 
be elected by the next legislaation. Mr. 
Walker has been waited upon by sev- 
eral delegaticins, but he has dcclitied 
to commit himself. It is known he has 
been asked to enter the field on former 
occasions, but has declined, because his 
business interests would not permit 



him to give the proper attention to 
public affairs. 

Of late years his business has been 
so arranged that his friends are of the 
opinion that he can be induced to ac- 
cept a seat in the senate. He said yes- 
terday, when asked regarding the re- 
port that he had been requested to 
make a campaign for the senate, that 
he was in no wise a "receptive" can- 
didate. 



WESTERN PACIFIC TO TAP 
WALKER FORESTS. 



Makes Deal With Owner of Immense 
California Tracts. 



Minneapolis Capitalist Will Erect Mills 
on His Timber Lands and Plans to 
Ship Large Quantities of Pine to the 
Eastern Markets. 



(New York Commercial, July 7, 1905.) 

San Francisco, July 6. — One of the 
latest reports regarding the future de- 
velopments of the Western Pacific re- 
lates to the proposed building of a 
branch line to tap the extensive timber 
holdings of Thomas B. Walker, of Min- 
neapolis. Mr Walker is the largest 
owner of timber lands in this state. 
Possibly nobody except himself knows 
the actual acreage he possesses, for it is 
variously estimated from 200,000 to 1,- 
000,000 acres, located in the sugar pine 
belt of Butts, Shasto, Siskiyou, Lassen 
and Modoc counties. Some of his vast 
timber properties lie near the surveyed 
line of the Western Pacific through 
Butte county. 

According to Mr. Walker's own rep- 
resentatives, an agreement has been 
reached between him and the Western 
Pacific for the building of branch roads 
into his timber tracts, in consideration 
of the erection by him of sawmills and 
the delivery to the corporation of the 
lumber for transportation to the East. 

It was at one time intended to tap 
this timber belt by building a railway 
up the Pit River to connect with the 
Southern Pacific's line at or near Red- 
ding, but that was before the Western 
Pacific entered the field as a prospective 
link in a new trans-continental railroad. 
The latter offers a shorter and more 
direct haul to the East, which is regard- 
ed by all the larger lumber men of the 
country as the future market of the 
products of the western timber lands. 

In this connection it is interesting to 
recall the plans of lumbering which Mr. 
Walker intends to carry out. The for- 
est undergrowth is to be systematically 
cleared from his lands and the waste 



of lumbering is to be removed, as these 
constitute the chief menace to the de- 
struction of the timber by fire. Then, 
instead of denuding the land completely 
of standing timber, as is done by the 
ordinary western lumber man, a sys- 
tematic plan of forestry involving the 
felling of only the more merchantable 
standing timber is to be adopted. Under 
this system the life of his forests will 
be extended indefinitely and a perpetual 
source of revenue will be maintained 
in them. 



NEW BUILDING FOR WHOLE- 
SALE FIRM. 



T. B. Walker to Expend $200,000 on 
Wyman, Partridge & Co. Ware- 
house. 



(Times, Minneapolis, Aug. 27, 1905.) 

T. B. Walker is to erect a $200,000 
warehouse for Wyman, Partridge & 
Co., the wholesale dry goods merchants, 
at Seventh street and Third avenue N. 
Harry W. Jones has been commissioned 
to prepare plans for the new structure 
and contractors are already figuring 
upon the cost. 

The building will be a seven-story 
affair and will be built in two sections, 
the first to be completed May 1 and the 
other later. Wyman, Partridge & Co. 
have taken a long time lease of the 
entire building. The improvement of 
the corner which this new warehouse is 
to occupy will mean a number of inci- 
dental improvements, including the 
laying of a new twelve inch water main 
for fire protection and the paving of the 
adjacent street, which will be done at 
Mr. Walker's expense. 

The combined warehouses will have 
a frontage of 100 feet on Third avenue, 
210 feet on Seventh street, and 185 feet 
on the St. Louis tracks. The building 
will be of mill construction and brick 
exterior and will be fully equipped 
with the lastest improved elevators and 
water si)rinkling systems. 

The new warehouse will give Wyman, 
Partridge & Co. 220,000 square feet of 
floor space. 



MR. WALKER ON SILVER. 

The address delivered by T. B. Walk- 
er, of this city, at the Hennepin Avenue 
M. E. Church on Monday evening, the 
full text of which was published in 
Yesterday's Tribune, was a strong pres- 
entation of the case against free and un- 
limited silver coinage and in favor of 
the single gold standard. — Tribune, 
May 13, 1896. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER 



The National Cyclopedia of American Biography. 



Thomas Barlow Walker, philan- 
thropist, was born in Xenia, Greene Co., 
O., Feb. 1, 1840, the seond son and third 
child of Piatt Bayliss and Anstis Barlow 
V/alker. The Walkers were of English 
stock, and settled during the early his- 
tory of the country in New Jersey, his 
father leaving that state early in life 
for New York. The Barlows were also 
of sturdy parentage. His maternal 
grandfather was Thomas Barlow, of 
New York, and two of his uncles were 
for many years judges, Thomas in New 
York and Moses in Ohio. His father 
died en route to California in 1849, and 
his mother was left to struggle with 
adversity with her four young children. 
From his ninth until his sixteenth year, 
Thomas led the usual careless life of the 
average frontier village boy. He was 
expert with the rifle and shot-gun and 
at the game of checkers. At sixteen 
the family removed to Berea, O., where 
better educational advantages were pos- 
sible, and where Thomas's boyhood ab- 
ruptly ended and earnest life began. 
From sixteen to nineteen his time was 
divided between work and study. After 
various business adventures, always at- 
tended with hard work and generally 
with success, he returned to his books 
and studies and the next winter taught 
a district school in the adjoining town- 
ship, where he had about sixty scholars, 
among whom were eight school teach- 
ers, some of them much older than he. 
About this time the war broke out, and 
with his associate students in the Bald- 
win University he volunteered as a 
soldier. Having failed to get to the 
front he, after waiting several months, 
and while in search of employment, 
landed in St. Paul, and the next morn- 
ing took the train to the city of Minne- 
apolis. On Dec. 19, 1863, he was mar- 
ried to Harriet, the youngest daughter 
of Fletcher Hulet. Dating from his mar- 
riage, the history of Mr. Walker is the 
history of Minneapolis. His first years 
were years of hardship, self-denial, and 
patient toil. The summer of 1863 was 
spent in railroading, after which, for 
some years, he gave his whole time to 
government surveys. In 1868 he began 
his venture in pine lands. As a con- 
sequence of his foresight, Mr. Walker 
today owns more valuable pine lands 
than any other man in the Northwest. 
In connection with these surveys and 
pine land enterprises, Mr. Walker has 
been, and is yet, extensively engaged 
throughout various sections of the 
Northwest in the manufacture of lum- 
ber. Mr. Walker is extremely liberal 



in the use of his wealth for the upbuild- 
ing of Minneapolis, or for the purposes 
of charity or charitable work. Mr. 
Walker's whole life has been greatly 
moulded and influenced by reading the 
books of public libraries, beginning with 
the private library of Father Blake, a 
Catholic priest. Through Mr. Walker's 
influence and efforts the Athenaeum 
Library was greatly improved. The 
reading-room was enlarged, an assistant 
employed, and hours lengthened. The 
library was also opened on Sunday, and 
the membership increased by allowing 
payment by installments. Mr. Walker 
purchased several hundred membership 
certificates, which he kept loaned out 
among his employees and others. In 
the rapid growth of the city he foresaw 
the demand for a library that should 
meet all the wants of our mixed popu- 
lation, and be free to all. At the same 
time it seemed unnecessary to maintain 
two seperate libraries and duplicate the 
valuable stock of books now in the 
Athenaeum. Mr. Walker proposed that 
the city by taxation establish a free 
library upon condition that the citizens 
contribute a certain sum toward the 
erection of the building, and that the 
Athenaeum, the Academy of Science, 
and the Fine Art Society, be given 
space in the building, in consideration 
of which the books of the Athenaeum 
Library were to circulate upon the same 
terms as those of the public library, and 
to be drawn in the same manner. This 
was agreed to, and necessary legislation 
secured, and Mr. Walker saw the real- 
ization of his desire of many years. The 
rapid growth of this institution during 
the six years which have now passed 
(1895) since it was first formally open- 
ed, makes its standing in circulation 
fourth among the libraries of the coun- 
try. The perfect harmony of action be- 
tween the two boards of the library and 
the Athenaeum, and the pride of the 
citizens in it, are the best possible wit- 
nesses to the wisdom of the board, and 
the liberal policy inaugurated by Mr. 
Walker. He has been annually elected 
president of the library board from its 
organization in 1885 to the present time. 
1895. The liberal provision for art in 
this building is also due to Mr. Walker's 
devotion tn its interests. From its in- 
ception he has been a staunch friend and 
supporter of the Art School, which has 
taken so high a rank among the edu- 
cational interests of the city, and among 
the art schools of the country. On the 
walls of the spacious gallery he has 
placed examples of nearly all his own 



private collection. The art gallery at 
his home has been pronounced the 
choicest collection of art treasures, 
for its size, in the United States, and is 
open to the public on all days but Sun- 
day, a liberality highly esteemed and 
appreciated both by citizens and stran- 
gers. The fame of this gallery has gone 
throughout the nation, and even to 
Europe, and many are the expressions 
of surprise from Eastern connoisseurs 
over the unlooked-for treasures 
displayed upon its walls. Air. Walker's 
home library consists of a large and 
carefully chosen collection of choice 
books. When Mr. Walker constructed 
his present residence in 1847 his large 
lawn was thrown open without a fence. 
This innovation has now become the 
custom adopted by a large portion of 
the citizens of Minneapolis. The bench- 
es placed around the lawn under the 
trees are occupied free by all classes 
of people during the summer. The 
Minnesota Academy of Natural Science 
is another institution much indebted to 
Mr. Walker's interest and patronage 
for its past support and present situa- 
tion, for through his influence, when the 
library building was designed, the needs 
and importance of this association were 
considered, and spacious and beautiful 
apartments were assigned to them. For 
several years Mr. Walker was a mem- 
ber of the board of managers of the 
State Reform School, where he made 
his strong practical business habits felt, 
and inaugurated many valuable changes, 
thus becoming a great favorite with its 
inmates. It was especially through the 
efforts of Mr. Walker that the Minne- 
apolis Business Union was organized, 
which has been a leading factor in build- 
ing up the business interests of the 
city, both in the line of manufacturing 
and wholesale trade. Mr. Walker was 
elected president of the union, which 
is composed of the wealthiest and most 
influential men of the city, and he has 
devoted a large part of his time, as well 
as a considerable amount of money, for 
the benefit of the city. He is the head 
of the Minneapolis Land and Invest- 
ment Co. Mr. Walker was for many 
years president of the Flour City Na- 
tional Bank. Three years ago he or- 
ganized a company, of which he is 
president, which constructed the Central 
City Market, which is, probably, the 
finest market building in the United 
States. In politics, Mr. Walker has 
always been a radical Republican, be- 
lieving in a sufficient protective tariff 
to hold our money at home, so as to 
build up our manufactories for the em- 
ployment of our workmen. He is a 
regular attendant of the Methodist 
church, of which his wife and several 
of his children are members. Through 
much doubt and questioning he has 
wrought his way up to a clear religious 



faith, a firm belief in the Bible as the 
rule of man's conduct, and the only safe 
foundation on which either men or na- 
tions can build. He has also taken 
pains to ground his growing children 
in the faith to which he has attained on- 
ly by tiresome research. He has been 
the constant director of the education 
of his eight children, as well as their 
daily and close companion. From their 
earliest years they have been suppliecf 
with tools and machinery and shops, 
which have given the manual dexterity 
and practical knowledge of applied 
mathematics for lack of which a large 
percentage of men are at a disadvan- 
tage all their lives. As a result, the 
boys, while yet in their early years, be- 
came expert in the use of tools, and 
their beautifully outfitted shops form 
no inconsiderable part of their home. 
Remembering his own boyhood, Mr. 
Walker has encouraged the boys in all 
out-of-door amusements, especially 
hunting, which he has shared with them. 



FOR YOUNG MEN. 



T. B. Walker Entertains Large Audi- 
ence at the Y, M. C. A. 
Some Essentials of a Successful Life 
Clearly Brought Out for the Bene- 
fit of the Inexperienced. 

Yesterday afternoon, in the Y. M. C. 
A. auditorium, T. B. Walker talked to 
300 young men of this city on "Some 
Essentials of a Successful Life." Mr. 
Walker is a Minneapolitan well quali- 
fied to speak to young men on the 
things which go farthest in the making 
of a successful career, and the interest 
shown was evidence that his advice is 
highly valued. 

The remarks of the speaker were 
practical, and came home to the young 
men as being the things which they 
had often overlooked in the search for 
the "open sesame" of success. He 
placed application, attention to details, 
independence of thought and action, 
moral courage and the ability to ap- 
propriate the experience, before his 
audience, as some of the most impor- 
tant things to be considered. 

Again Mr. Walker said that one of 
the chief requisites to the man who 
wished to be successful was good 
health. "That comes only through do- 
ing what is best for oneself," he said, 
"and doing what is best for oneself will 
bring attainment in all lines." — Trib- 
une, April 22, 1901. 



The strike was ended by the influ- 
ence of T. B. Walker and after all was 
settled Jim bought the boys a box of 
Red Ola cigars. — Banner, Kerkhaven, 
Wis., May 22, 1903. 



Wvt l^ilg ^mttf ^fi^^ 



ST. PAUL, MINN., SEPT. 10, 1905. 



CHILDREN HIS GUESTS AT >FAIR 



Saves 1,100 Boys and Girls From Disappointment. — T. B. Walker 
Buys Tickets for Crowd of Children That Had Gathered Under 
False Impression That Boys and Girls Were to Get in Free. 

Yesterday was children's day. Al- 
though it was not announced on the 
program as such, the children made it 
so. The state fair management used to 
set aside the last day of the fair for 
the children. Any child who came to 
the gates was admitted free. The man- 
agement has discontinued the practice 
in recent years, however. Hordes of 
Twin City children used to overrun the 
grounds, overwhelming the superintend- 
ents of the various buildings with trou- 
ble and anxiety. The management 
deemed it expedient to discontinue the 
observance of the juvenile day, as a 
measure of self-protection. 

But precedent is a thing that cannot 
easily be overcome. There is a frater- 
nity among children in which they are 
bound to pass on to their younger sis- 
ters and brothers any and all informa- 
tion of "free doin's." Although many 
of the adults have forgotten the custom 
of years ago, the little ones bear it in 
mind, and every year hundreds of them, 
laden with lunch baskets and shoe boxes 
filled with home-made sandwiches and 
cookies, congregate about the east gate 
near the administration building. 

More than five hundred urchins had 
gathered at this gate yesterday morn- 
ing. Their ages ranged from four to 
sixteen. Some were ragged and dirty 
and others were dressed in the best that 
they possessed. Many of the boys wore 
but two garments, exclusive of their 
torn little straw hats, and others were 
attired in most fastidious fashion and 
accompanied by their little acquaint- 
ances. 



Clamor for Admittance. 

The "kids" began to gather early in 
the morning, and by 11 o'clock there 
was a crowd of them at the east gate. 
They surged back and forth, tugging at 
the fences and at each other; shouting 
and crying their opinions of the unkind 
treatment of the fair management. 
"Hully Gee, but they're stingy," seemed 
to be the consensus of opinion. 

In reality, however, the fair manage- 
ment is very considerate, and nothing 
pleases those at the head of the state 
fair better than to dispense a little sun- 



shine among the children of the cities, 
but experience has taught them that 
some urchins are rather light-fingered, 
and in former years many exhibits have 
been carried away. 

The management remained obdurate 
for two hours yesterday. Just at the 
critical moment, T. B. Walker of Min- 
neapolis, took upon himself to act as an 
ambassador for the children. He bore 
in his hand a small fluttering paper as 
a Hag of truce, and entered the adminis- 
tration building. The bit of paper was 
a check for $100, and Mr. Walker told 
the management to give a ticket to each 
little urchin without the gates. Tickets 
were issued to 1,110 children and paid 
for by Mr. Walker. 

When the good news reached the ex- 
pectant "kids" there was a wild stam- 
pede toward the ticket office, and several 
able-bodied men. among them Secretary 
Randall, B. F. Nelson, of Minneapolis, 
and Supt. Baird, had a strenuous half 
hour keeping the children in line. 

SPEAKS TO ACCOUNTANTS. 

T. B. Walker Delivers an Interesting 

Address at His Home. 

The Bookkeepers' and Accountants' 
Association of Minneapolis met last 
evening at the residence of T. B. Walk- 
er. About eighty members of the or- 
ganization were present and the meet- 
ing was one of the most delightful and 
instructive ones that have ever been 
held in the history of the organization. 

The feature of the evening was an 
address by T. B. Walker. He spoke 
for an hour upon subjects that were 
pertinent to the work of accountants, 
dwelling at length upon their relations 
to their employers, the wage problems, 
and the great advantages that were 
opened to them. 

He laid special stress upon the re- 
sponsible positions that accountants 
were called upon to fill and gave a brief 
outline of the salient points that make 
them successful. 

After the address of Mr. Walker an 
hour was spent in viewing the pictures 
in the art gallery. 
(Times, Minneapolis, Minn., Apr. 9, '03.) 



HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, 

BY ISAAC ATWATER, 1893. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



Mr. Walker has been a resident of Min- 
neapolis since 1862. Since 1868 he has 
been engaged in the lumber trade, from 
year to year increasing his operations 
until he is today the largest owner ol 
pine timbered lands in the state, and, 
with possibly one exception, the largest 
in the Northwest, and manufactures 
anl handles a larger quantity of logs 
and lumber than any other one man in 
the Northwest. His cutting of logs and 
sale of timber the present year (1891) 
reaches the enormous quantity of more 
than one hundred million feet of logs. 
His extensive lumber business on the 
Red river, with mills at Crookston, 
Minnesota, and Grand Forks, North Da- 
kota, in addition to his heavy logging 
and timber business on the Mississippi 
river, forms a mass of business and re- 
sponsibility that is commonly divided 
between several lumber firms, and each 
firm composed of two or more partners. 

With the detail of planning and man- 
aging the enormous business, he may be 
supposed to be a very busy man; yet 
he finds time to preside over the affairs 
of one of the largest banks in his city; 
over a unique organization of business 
men (his own conception) to promote 
the material interests of the Business 
Men's Union; over a gigantic Land and 
Improvement Company in the vicinity; 
and, to vary the occupation from its too 
material tendency, he presides as well 
over the Managing Board of the City 
Library and the Society of Fine Arts, 
and finds still time to devote to the 
Academy of Natural Science and the 
spiritual and benevolent work of the 
church. 

To a rare business capacity which has 
conceived, and energy which has exe- 
cuted, such gigantic enterprises. Mr. 
Walker has united scholarly attain- 
ments of a high order, and such artistic 
taste as has made him the possessor of 
some of the finest works of renowned 
modern painters, among which are : Na- 
poleon in his Coronation Robes by 
David, Jules Breton's "Evening Call," 
Bougureau's "Passing Shower." Rosa 
Bonheur's "Spanish Muleteers Crossing 
the Pyrenees," Corot's "Nymphs" and 
"Scenes in Old Rome," Boulanger's 
"Barber Sliop of Licinius," Wilhelm 
Von Kaulbach's "Dispersion of the Na- 
tions," Poole's "Job and His Messen- 
gers," Jazet's "Battle of Trafalgar," 
Vibert's "Morning News," Robert 
Lafevre's original portraits of Na- 



poleon, Josephine and Marie Louise, 
Peale's portrait of Gen. Washington, 
Detaille's "En Tonkin," with fine exam- 
ples by Knaus, Van Marke, Jacque, 
Rousseau, Francais, Gabriel Ferrier, Ca- 
zin, Schreyer, Inness, Moran, Lerolle, 
Brown, Herman, Lossow, and many 
other equally well known artists, mak- 
ing in all a collection of about one 
hundred paintings, which are generally 
regarded as the most uniformly fine 
private collection in this country. 

It is interesting to trace the influen- 
ces which have led the studious and am- 
bitious youth from the narrow limita- 
tions of his home, step by step, to a 
newly developing region with wide op- 
portunities and have forced him to the 
front of the fortunate few who have 
achieved success. 

His parents, Piatt Bayliss and Anstis 
Barlow Walker had migrated from New 
York, where they were connected with 
many respectable and some eminent 
families, tracing their lineage to early 
New England sources to Ohio, where, 
at Xenia, on the 1st of February. 1840, 
Thomas Barlow, their third child and 
second son was born. The name Bar- 
low was the maternal family name, 
made honorable by two brothers of 
Mrs. W. Walker bearing the judicial 
title, one in New York and one in Ohio. 

The father embarked all his means in 
fitting out a train for the newly dis- 
covered El Dorado, and before reaching 
the plains was smitten with cholera 
and died. The train proceeded but 
never yielded a dividend to the furlorn 
widow, who was left with her four 
children to breast the storm of life 
alone and penniless. From the time 
of this sad bereavement until his six- 
teenth year Thomas shared the lot of 
many a fatherless boy in trial, struggle, 
and longing aspiration. Then the fami- 
ly removed to Berea to enjoy the ad- 
vantages offered by the Baldwin Uni- 
versity for securing to the children an 
education. The lad of sixteen entered 
the school and with many interruiitions 
continued his studies in and out of 
school for several years. He was able 
to attend not more than one term in 
each year, engaging as traveling repre- 
sentative of the prosperous citizen, 
Hon. Fletcher Hulet, who was a manu- 
facturer of the Berea grindstones. On 
his travels his books were hie com- 
panions, and he was enabled by diligent 
study to keep step with the more fortu- 



nate students who remained at the 
University. He had an aptness for 
mathematical studies, as well as for the 
sciences, particularly astronomy and 
chemistry. In these branches he went 
far beyond the requirements of the col- 
lege curriculum, mastering the chief 
problems of Newton's Principia. The 
text books of these days of travel and 
of study, marred by much jolting over 
rough roads, and defaced by drippings 
of midnight oil, occupy a corner in Mr. 
Walker's fine library. 

When nineteen he took a contract to 
furnish a railroad then under construc- 
tion with cross ties, at Paris, 111., and 
organized a large camp and for eight- 
een months was engaged in the forest 
with his choppers and teams. The 
contract was filled and would have 
yielded considerable profit, but that 
the failure of the company deprived him 
of all but a few hundred dollars. The 
following winter was occupied in teach- 
ing a district school, for which he was 
well qualified, and which occupation he 
so valued as to contemplate making it 
the work of his life. About this time 
he called on a college acquaintance, who 
was Professor of Mathematics in tlie 
Wisconsin University, and demonstrat- 
ing to his friend that he could solve the 
most abstruse problems of the Princi- 
pia, made application for an assistant 
professorship of mathematics. While 
the application was under considera- 
tion he proceeded on his business trav- 
els, and at McGregor, Iowa, met Mr, 
J. M. Robinson, of Minneapolis, who so 
enthused him with a description of the 
attractions and advantages of the em- 
bryo city that he decided to visit it. 
Arriving at St. Paul with a consign- 
ment of grindstones he met an energet- 
ic, vigorous and unusually intelligent 
young man who was employed by the 
transportation company as clerk and 
workman on the wharf. This young 
man sorted out and tallied the grind- 
stones, and put in a separate pile all the 
"nicked and spalted" stones, which the 
purchaser, Mr. D. C. Jones, of St. Paul, 
was permitted by his bill of sale of the 
stones to reject. This young man was 
James J. Hill, president of the Great 
Northern Railroad Company, and the 
most conspicuous and wealthiest rail- 
road man in the west. 

Within an hour after his arrival at 
Minneapolis he entered the employ- 
ment of George B. Wright, who had a 
contract to survey government lands, 
and begun preparations to take the field. 
He had studied the science but had no 
technical knowledge of surveying, and 
engaged as chainman. Mr. Wright 
himself manipulated the instrument. 
Not many days had passed in the field 
before the position changed. The em- 
ployer carried the chain and the new 
man run the compass. During the win- 



ter he occupied a desk in a law office 
of L. M. Stewart, Esq., engaged in gen- 
eral study receiving from "Elder" Stew- 
art the commendation that he had 
"put in the best winter's work on his 
books that he had ever seen a young 
man do." Meanwhile the pending ap- 
plication at Madison had been decided 
in his favor, and he had been offered a 
chair in the University as Assistant 
in Mathematics. But it was too late; 
a new career had opened, and the young 
man was to become a leader of enter- 
prise rather than a teacher of boys. 
The following season was spent in ex- 
amining lands for the St. Paul & Pacific 
Railroad Company. 

Among his fellow students at Baldwin 
University was the daughter of his em- 
ployer. Miss Harriet G. Hulet. An 
engagement of marriage had been made. 
Mr. Walker returned to Ohio, and on 
the 19th of December, 1863, was mar- 
ried to Miss Hulet. They came to 
Minneapolis and set about the acquisi- 
tion of a home. The struggle was a 
long one. Sharing the life of the pion- 
eers of the day with cheerfulness and 
industry, with helpfulness and courage, 
their efforts were successful. A humble 
home was secured; better one followed. 
A family of eight children were raised, 
and today the elegant mansion on Hen- 
nepin avenue, with its treasures of art, 
is the happy consummation of labor 
and hope. 

Five years following his marriage Mr. 
Walker was chiefly engaged upon gov- 
ernment surveys, though for a part of 
the time he was upon railroad engineer- 
ing. This employment brought him 
among the pine forests of the northern 
part of the State, and the observations 
then made formed a better wage than 
the surveyor's pay. His eye ranging 
from the tall pine acres across the 
treeless prairies of the West saw visions 
of vast possibilities of business and 
fortune in transforming the rugged 
trees into houses and improvements, in- 
to villages and cities, to arise on the 
broad stretches of prairie. The follow- 
ing year made what was the vision a sub- 
stantial reality. Mr. Walker became an 
owner of vast tracts of pine timbered 
land, a lumberman, a manufacturer and 
seller of lumber. His first venture in 
the location of pine timbered lands was 
in 1867. Possessing no capital of his 
own, he was obliged to share with 
others who could furnish it the profits 
of the business. He became associated 
with Dr. Levi Butler and Mr. Howard 
W, Mills, at first in locating timbered 
lands, and afterwards in logging and 
manufacturing lumber, as well as in 
selling pine stumpage. This firm con- 
tinued for five years, until ill health 
compelled Mr. Mills to retire from the 
business. The firm of Butler & Walker 
was formed and continued the business. 



This continued some years, until the 
burning of the lumber mills on the east 
side of the river, the machinery in two 
of which belonged to the firm, entailing 
a serious and embarrassing loss. 

This led to the formation of the 
partnership of L. Butler & Co., con- 
sisting of Mr. Walker, Dr. Levi Butler, 
O. C. Merriman, James W. Lane and 
Leon Lane. This firm constructed one 
of the large saw mills, on the east side, 
at the new dam, and for several years 
did a large manufacturing business — 
the largest at that time in the city. In 
1871 this firm was succeeded by Butler 
& Walker, but was closed up in 1872, 
as Mr. Walker was unwilling to con- 
tinue business during the business de- 
pression which followed and which en- 
tailed heavy losses upon those who con- 
tinued in business. 

The time becoming more prosperous, 
in 1877 the firm of Camp & Walker was 
formed, the partner being Major A. 
Camp, who had for many years been 
surveyor-general of logs and lumber in 
the district and was an expert in the 
handling of logs. The Pacific Mill, long 
operated by Joseph Dean & Co., was 
purchased and operated until the fall 
of 1880, when it was burned. During 
the succeeding winter and spring, the 
mill was rebuilt, nearly on the old site, 
but in so thorough a manner that it 
was the best mill which had ever been 
erected in Minneapolis. It was operat- 
ed until 1887, when the ground which 
it occupied being required for railroad 
purposes the mill was torn down. Own- 
ing their own pine timber, mills and 
lumber yards, the firm of Camp & 
Walker did a very large lumber busi- 
ness. 

Mr. Walker had located a large quan- 
tity of pine lands about the sources of 
Red Lake river, the outlet of 
which is by way of the Red river. To 
utilize this timber he organized with 
his eldest son, Gilbert M. Walker, the 
Red River Lumber Company, and built 
a large saw mill at Crookston, and an- 
other at Grand Forks, on the Red Riv- 
er. These mills have been in opera- 
tion each year since their construction, 
up to the present time, the business 
being managed mostly by Mr. Gilbert 
Walker. During these years Mr. Walk- 
er was connected with Mr. H. T. 
Welles, Franklin Steele and others, in 
the purchase of timber lands and in 
the sale of stumpage and logs. 

At the time of the devastation of the 
crops in the western part of the state 
by grasshoppers, while Gov. Pillsbury 
was exploring the suffering districts and 
organizing relief, Mr. Walker made a 
personal visit to the afflicted country, 
and perceiving that a late crop might 
be made by sowing turnips and buck- 
wheat, purchased all the seed to be had 
in Minneapolis and St. Paul and tele- 



graphed to Chicago for all that could 
be had there and personally distributed 
it among the farmers. The crop was 
a success and greatly relieved the suf- 
fering of families and animals. 

For some years Mr. Walker served 
as one of the managers of the State 
Reform School, giving to the duties 
much thought and attention, and be- 
coming much endeared to the unfortu- 
nate inmates of that institution. 

Always interested in public educa- 
tion, valuing books and libraries, Mr. 
Walker was a stockholder and liberal 
contributor to the Minneapolis Athe- 
naeum. It was in its organization a 
stock company, and the privileges were 
confined to its members. Desiring to 
open its doors to a wider circulation, 
Mr. Walker gave years of labor, against 
the opposition of many stockholders, 
to accomplish the cherished purpose. 
Buying many shares, he distributed 
them among deserving young people, 
and procured the lowering of the price 
of shares and the admission of the 
general public to the reading room, 
and by the payment of a small fee to 
the books also. Yet these concessions 
did not meet his views of the needs of 
the public. Through the agitation 
caused by these changes, and his per- 
sistent adhesion to the idea of a free 
library, and in pursuance of plans sug- 
gested by him, the present free public 
library was established. The plan was 
unique and comprehensive. 

The books and property of the Athe- 
naeum, together with the fund which 
Dr. Kirby Spencer had bequeathed to 
it, were transferred to the City Li- 
brary, a large subscription by Mr. 
Walker and other liberal citizens and 
an appropriation by the city were made 
for the erection of the building, and 
a tax on the property of the city of 
one-half hill upon the dollar of valua- 
tion was authorized for its support. 
Quarters were provided in the building 
for the Academy of Natural Science, 
and for the Society of Fine Arts, in 
both of which Mr. Walker had taken 
an especial interest. Mr. Walker was 
made President of the Library Board, 
and under his wise and liberal coun- 
sels the city has become possessed of 
this beneficial institution. Nor did his 
interest in the institution stop with the 
erection of the building. The walls of 
the Art Gallery are liberally spread 
with costly and beautiful paintings 
moved from his own collection, and his 
friend J. J. Hill was induced to add 
some costly specimens which he had 
gathered among the studios of Euro- 
pean artists. 

The Minneapolis Land & Investment 
Company, of which Mr. Walker is 
president and which owes its being to 
his inspiration, is a gigantic undertak- 
ing. Its leading idea was to benefit the 



city of Minneapolis by furnishing suit- 
able sites for manufactories, although 
it is quite likely to become a profit- 
able investment as well. Seventeen 
hundred acres of land were purchased 
just west of the city limits, and a 
large amount of money expended in 
laying out and fitting the tract for its 
uses. There are fast gathering various 
industries, and a new city is spring- 
ing up at St. Louis Park. It was in 
the same spirit that the Business Men's 
Union was formed at Mr. Walker's sug- 
gestion, and he was made its president. 
These efforts cost time, labor and 
money, but neither the one nor the 
other are spared to build up the sub- 
stantial interests of the city of his 
home and of his love. These acts in 
the public interest are supplemented 
in the same spirit by a private benevo- 
lence as wide as the needs of the sor- 
rowful and the suffering, of which no 
record exists except in the hearts of 
the grateful recipients, unless the Di- 
vine Master, whom he acknowledges 
and serves, has entered them on his 
book of remembrance. 



MEN WHO HAVE MADE MIN- 
NESOTA FAMOUS. 

Sagacity, perseverance and aMlity, 
together with a determination to do 
always what was best, and not what he 
thought the best, has brought about 
the conspicuous success of the life's 
work of the subject of the accompany- 
ing illustration. Left on his own re- 
sources in early youth, Thomas B. 
Walker has forged his way onward and 
upward, and has gained fortune and 
distinction. He has not only demon- 
strated his ability in his chosen field 
of business activity, but in art and lit- 
erature he has also gained fame. His 
character is above reproach, and he 
has always practiced the highest type 
of honesty. In all his transactions, 
business and social, he has been con- 
siderate of the rights of others. With 
a strong belief in the ultimate success 
of correctly applied endeavor, he la- 
bored hard and continuously toward 
the coveted goal, and no dishonest 
fortune has ever come into his posses- 
sion. He is, indeed, a type of the suc- 
cessful American that the aspiring 
young men of the land may well emu- 
late. — Minneapolis News, Minneapolis, 
Aug. 16, 1906. 



WHO S WHO IN AMERICA- 
1906-1907. 

EDITED BY JOHN W. LEONARD. 

Thomas Barlow Walker, lumberman; 
born Xenia, O.. Feb.. 1, 1840; son of 
Piatt Bayless and Anstis Keziah (Bar- 
low) Walker; graduate of Baldwin Uni- 
versity, Berea, O.; married Berea, O.. 



Harriet G. Hulet,; taught school, and 
later was a traveling salesman. Went 
to Minneapolis in 1862; was engaged 
on government surveys and later on 
surveys for St. Paul & Duluth; has 
large lumber, pine land and milling in- 
terests in Minnesota and on the Pacific 
Coast. Was projector and builder of 
St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minne- 
apolis, and has large property interests. 
President of board of directors of Min- 
neapolis Public Library; owns large 
private gallery of fine paintings by the 
best masters, ancient and modern. 
Member of National Arts Society; 
president of Minneapolis Fine Arts So- 
ciety. Address, 803 Hennepin avenue, 
Minneapolis. 

ADVISES YOUNG MEN AS TO 
MEASURE OF LIFE. 



T. B. Walker Believes Faith and Hope 
In the Spiritual is as Necessary as 
Temporal Prosperity. 



(Times, Minneapolis, Minn.. Feb. 8.' 04.) 

A large audience greeted T. B. Walk- 
er yesterday afternoon in the audi- 
torium of the Y. M. C. A. building, 
where he delivered an address on "The 
True Measure of Life, or. Is Life Worth 
Living?" 

Whether life is worth living depends, 
according to the analysis given by Mr. 
Walker, upon the application of Chris- 
tian characteristics to every-day life. 

Wealth, power and influence can 
avail but little without faith and hope 
in something better and more lasting 
after the probationary period has been 
served in the life on earth, the speaker 
said. 

He pointed out instances where men 
had been ordinarily recognized as ex- 
traordinarily successful, and yet their 
lives were not worth living because 
when they were brought face to face 
with eternity they were not satisfied 
and went into their graves in hopeless 
despair. 

Mr. Walker named many of the 
great men of the world who have been 
recognized as the most prominent 
atheists, infidels and disbelievers, and 
while they attained certain earthly 
achievements, he showed that they met 
disaster before they ended their lives 
on earth and acknowledged that there 
was no satisfaction in what they had 
accomplished. 

Lincoln and McKinley were referred 
to as men who lived worthy and suc- 
cessful lives because their ambition 
looked beyond the earthly success and 
took trust in God. 

Preceding the address from Mr. 
Walker, Miss Mabel Runge sang two 
solos and several selections were played 
by Sheibley's orchestra. 



1 




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I 



DAILY 



TIMES 



THTOSDAT HOSIIIHO, IXTLt JO. 190S_8XTI>TT TAl 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF HON. THOMAS B. WALKER. 



Minneapolis Business Man, Financier, Philanthropist and Writer. 
Owner of the Greatest Absolutely Free Art Gallery in the World. 



That the greatness of a city is in its 
men is an accepted fact. Just as high 
as their minds soar, there is marked the 
limit of eminence attained by the com- 
munity of which they are an integral 
part — provided, of course, the soaring is 
practical. 

Fanciful flights of imagination, Uto- 
pian theories which lapse into film and 
vapor when brought into contact with 
the chill of practical appreciation, never 
marked the fast, up-hill route travelled 
in the transition from log cabin to sky- 
scraper in the life of a city. 

A big city must necessarily be the 
work of big-minded men — men of many 
and varied qualities of energy, persever- 
ance, tact and business sagacity. In 
such men Minneapolis is rich. 

From her pioneer days she has boast- 
ed of them. Through all the years of 
her making they have been with her. 

Her fortunes have been theirs and 
their fortunes have been hers. 

To enumerate all of these giants of 
the business and professional world 
would require many miles of type, but 
happily Alinneapolis is fortunate in 
having as one of her favored sons of 
stalwart citizens of such sterling worth, 
versatility and breadth of character 
that he can be accepted as a typical 
Minneapolitan, embodying all of the 
virtues and characteristics most com- 
mendable in his fellows and most no- 
ticeable to the student of civic affairs. 

His name is T. B. Walker, whose 
record and personality stand isolated 
by their brilliancy in a setting that is 
even all brightness itself; whose deeds 
have emblazoned his name inefTaceably 
on the loftiest pinnacle of public opinion 
and whose quiet, modestly anonymous 
works for Christianity and the human 
races have carved for him a golden 
throne not for the eyes of this world. 

In the pursuit of a vocation based on 
any one of his many accomplishments 
T. B. Walker would have been a suc- 
cess. Had he confined himself to fol- 
lowing any one of a score of lines which 
have contributed collectively to his 
fame he would still be a notable man. 
Few instances are there recorded where 
so many paths of achievements have 
been followed by one man. 



In this respect Mr. Walker may per- 
haps best be described as in the class 
of which President Theodore Roose- 
velt and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany 
are such notable exponents. His has 
been the strenuous life and the gentle, 
the useful and the adorning. Qualities 
have manifested themselves in him from 
the time when as a boy he first showed 
evidences of marvelous mathematical 
genius, which stamp him as a paragon. 

As an example to the youth of the 
nation he is worthy the attention of the 
historian for many generations to come. 

A VERSATILE CHARACTER. 

How many men in the world are there 
who can class rightfully and by com- 
mon verdict of their fellow citizens as 
well as the world in general, as a cap- 
tain of industry, philanthropist, patron 
of art, scholar, scientist, litterateur, 
municipal expert, civil engineer, forest- 
ry expert, lecturer, preacher, student 
of economics, traveler, lumberman and 
financier? 

It is safe to say that few city directo- 
ries in the world today contain the 
name of such another man as this great 
Minneapolitan. 

To narrate in all their picturesque 
detail all of the eventful features of the 
carrer of Thomas B. Walker would be 
to enter into an all too extended w-ord- 
picture, more than is permitted in the 
brief space here allotted. Therefore, in 
order that the story of the man's life 
be presented in comprehensive outline 
it is taken up chronologically. 

Thomas Barlow Walker belongs in 
that illustrious brotherhood of men who 
have won their way from a small be- 
ginning in the face of difficulties — that 
galaxy of indomitable spirits that has 
given Ohio her wondrous place as the 
native state of presidents, statesmen 
and leaders in the world of industry. 

He was born in Xenia, Green county, 
February 1, 1840. the third child of Plntt 
Bayless and Anstis Barlow Walker. 
His parents were in circumstances con- 
sidered comfortable in those days of the 
development of the western reserve. 
His father was by trade a shoemaker, 
but by instinct and i)ractice he was im- 
bued with those characteristics which 
in these later days of strenuous devel- 



opment makg a man the successful pro- 
moter of great enterprises. 

Thus does Thomas B. Walker come 
naturally by his wonderful business sa- 
gacity and acumen. When the boy 
Thomas was but nine years of age there 
came into his life an event fraught with 
sorrow to his mother but of double 
significance to the child, whose tender 
youth obviated the realization of its 
meaning. 

His father having amassed sufficient 
working capital to emba'-k in a venture 
which for those time was one of magni- 
tude, invested all his means in a wagon 
train of merchandise with which he 
started on the long and perilous over- 
land route to California, for this was in 
the year 1849 — that historic epoch-mak- 
ing period marked by the gold fever 
of the virgin west. 

Hardly had the expedition reached 
the gateway to the western plains when 
its chief was stricken with cholera, which 
was then sweeping the country. Death 
overcame him on the plains near War- 
rensburg, INIo. Now came the blow 
which, seemingly greater than the grief- 
stricken widow could bear at the time, 
was perhaps pregnant with the greater 
force in the making of the orphaned 
boy's character than could be given to 
the child or woman to grasp in the 
hours of their affliction. The merchan- 
dise train was carried through to its 
destination and the goods sold at the 
enormously inflated prices which then 
prevailed in the new-found El Dorado 
of California. But not a penny of the 
proceeds ever reached the widow and 
her fatherless babes. 

HIS mother's mainstay. 

Then began the mother's brave battle 
against adversity and the children's piti- 
ful efforts to console and aid her and to 
contribute to the family's store. Spurred 
on by the beacon light kindled by 
his noble and devoted mother, young 
Thomas began to bend his efforts to- 
ward fitting himself to take up the 
battle which his mother was thus obliged 
for a time to bear alojje. His oppor- 
tunities for schooling were few indeed, 
but his mother's teachings so devel- 
oped his mind that at the age of sixteen 
he was enabled to matriculate at Bald- 
win University at Berea, Ohio. 

There he remained in nominal at- 
tendance on his classes for several 
years, winning a term's instruction, 
perhaps, each year, by devoting the re- 
mainder of that period to the avocation 
of a commercial traveler. While on the 
road as a salesman he continued his 
studies, devoting every moment he 
could snatch from his business to the 
development of his mind. 

His school books he kept constantly 
with him, the heavier of his two valises 
being a library from which he drew the 



knowledge which in later years served 
him in such good stead. The stum- 
bling block of his school days became 
the foundation stones of his studious 
habits, for then did he acquire the cus- [ 
torn of adding to the storehouse of his 
knowledge new insight into subjects 
which have gone to broaden and expand 
the scope of his remarkable career. 

During his roamings as a commercial h 
traveler he gained wide and valuable | 
knowledge of business, which caused I 
him to give much thought to the op- I 
portunities open to young men bent I 
on making a fortune. In casting 
about for a larger field of endeavor he 
decided to follow in the footsteps of 
his father and become a contractor. 

He took his first contract at the age 
of nineteen years. It was for provid- 
ing cross ties and cordwood to a rail- 
road having its terminus at Paris, 111. 

This he followed for eighteen months, 
successfully, so far as his efforts were 
concerned, but as events turned out, 
disastrous from a financial point of 
view. The company failed and he re- 
ceived nothing for his long term of toil. 
Feeling, however, that the experience 1 
he had gained in the woods was a valu- I 
able asset, he decided to make a study I 
of forestry and pursue it in search of 
fortune, if at some later day he failed to 
find the golden fleece in other fields. 

The fact this this knowledge eventual- 
ly brought him the nucleus of his pres- 
ent fortune is worthy of passing com- 
ment. 

His versatility manifested itself at this 
point, however, and he returned home 
and taught school for a year. Then he 
resumed for a time his original calling 
of commercial traveler, meanwhile, con- 
stantly maintaining his pursuit of 
knowledge. His "line" was grind- 
stones, Hon. Fletcher Hulet having 
commissioned him to create a whole- 
sale market for him at Berea. 

During his travels in Wisconsin, in 
1862, he was surprised to learn that his 
reputation as a student and apt mathe- 
matician had preceded him, and that he 
was spoken of as the probable recipient 
of an ofYer from the State University of 
Wisconsin to fill the chair of mathe- 
matics in that institution. Not to over- 
look any opportunities, the young trav- 
eling man promptly made known to the 
regents of the university his willingness 
to accept the professorship. Their dig- 
nified dilatoriness in the matter, how- 
ever, was too much for his ardent, pro- 
gressive young spirit. 

By the time the chair was properly 
warm for him, he was flitting on his 
way again, selling grindstones along 
the upper Mississippi at a rate they had 
never been sold before. 

Fate directed his travels to McGregor, 
Iowa, where the chance remark of a 



casual acquaintance changed the whole 
course of his life and guided his foot- 
steps into that brilliant pathway of suc- 
cess from which he never thereafter 
swerved. 

The man who thus unconsciously 
builded so well for Minneapolis and the 
great northwest was J. M. Robinson, of 
Minneapolis. Mr Robinson told of the 
glories of the embryo city by the Falls 
of St. Anthony. He painted in brilliant 
colors the prospects and possibilities of 
the coming metropolis. Won by his 
word pictures, this budding captain of 
industry within the hour was on his way 
to the city of golden promise. He 
closed up his affairs as a commercial 
salesman and connected himself im- 
mediately with a government surveying 
party under the leadership of George 
B. Wright. 

SEES MINNESOTA. 

Quick to grasp the splendid oppor- 
tunities for the development of the me- 
tropolis, afforded by Minneapolis' mag- 
nificent water power, with his usual 
prompt decision he wrote back to his 
Ohio home to his affianced wife: "I 
have found the spot where we will make 
our home." For a romance had sprung 
up during his college days in Berea, 
Ohio. A young woman awaited the 
word which would tell her of the suc- 
cessful outcome of her fiance's quest of 
fortune. 

Later in the following season Mr. 
Walker dropped for the nonce his busi- 
ness cares. He returned to his parental 
home. There on December 19, 1863, he 
was united in wedlock to Harriet G., 
youngest daughter of Hon. Fletcher 
Hulet, his former employer. 

Mr. Walker's former college presi- 
dent. Rev. J. Wheeler, D. D., was the 
clergyman who linked the lives of these 
two for a union which has since been a 
partnership for the uplifting of mankind 
and for the rearing of eight children 
born to them. 

Their home in this city of the west 
soon became the rendezvous of Minne- 
apolis culture. In 1874, when fortune 
had smiled upon the house of Walker, a 
palatial residence was erected at the cor- 
ner of Eighth Street and Hennepin 
Avenue, where the family has since 
made its home. 

To this home Mr. Walker brought 
his affectionate mother and there his 
countless deeds of filial affection \vere 
performed until 1883 when death 
claimed the noble woman who gave to 
the world one of the men who were 
born to serve humanity and whose 
progress far exceeded her fondest 
dreams. 

But one other sorrow has come to 
this happy home. Mr. Walker's second 
son, just as life had begun to mature 
into the promise of a successful busi- 



ness career, was suddenly stricken with 
fever and in one brief week the family 
was bereft of one tenderly loved and 
whose cherished memory will live for- 
ever to each heart of the Walker fire- 
side. 

There was more Indian fighting about 
the surveying expedition upon which 
Mr. Walker embarked on first reaching 
Minneapolis than there was surveying, 
however. The little party of sixteen 
was constantly beset and harassed by 
the red men, who had just then started 
on that path of massacre which dyed 
with blood the prairies and forests of 
Minnesota. 

After three days of peril the band 
reached Fort Ripley, which they helped 
to defend for some time. 

Mr. Walker's experience in the gov- 
ernment survey service lasted nearly 
three years, after which he engaged for 
a year in the survey of the St. Paul & 
Duluth Railway. Here is knowledge 
of forestry opened his eyes to the pos- 
sibilities of the lumber industry in the 
country which he traversed, and re- 
sulted in his becoming the pioneer of 
Minnesota lumber magnates. 

GOES INTO LUMBERING. 

Although he was without sufficient 
funds at the time to embark in lumber- 
ing on a large scale, his sterling busi- 
ness qualities commended him to Dr. 
Levi Butler and Howard Mills, who 
took him in with them and organized 
the firm of Butler, Mills & Walker. 
The experience and knowledge which 
had cost him so dear in his youth count- 
ed as his capital equally with their 
money. He managed the business of 
the firm. He superintended the felling 
of forests and he built the mills which 
transformed those forests into villages 
of symmetrically piled lumber and into 
towns and hamlets in Minnesota's for- 
ests and prairies. 

Personally he operated the camps, the 
mills and the lumber yards. After sev- 
eral years of continued success the firm 
was dissolved, owing to the death of Dr. 
Butler and the departure of Mr. Mills 
to California in search of health. 

Mr. Walker, however, continued in 
the business, expanding it by leaps and 
bounds. In some of his undertakings, 
he was associated with Henry T. Welles, 
particularly in the purchase of pine 
lands and timber. He spread his hold- 
ings over northern Minnesota and Da- 
kota. St. Anthony Falls whirled the 
wheels which were now turning out his 
fortune. 

He purchased and operated the J. 
Dean mill and after the plant was de- 
stroyed by fire he rebuilt it. For many 
years he operated it with Major George 
A. Camp, under the firm name of Camp 
& Walker. Later he organized the Red 
River Lumber company, his business 



partner in this instance being his son, 
Gilbert M. Walker. Two mills were 
established by the firm, one at Crook- 
ston, Minn., the other at Grand Forks, 
N. D. 

Mr. Walker is also associated with 
H. C. Akeley in the firm of Walker & 
Akeley in the ownership of large tracts 
of pine land, but they operate no mills. 

Mr. Walker has not confined his at- 
tention solely to the lumber business, 
however. He has been closely identi- 
fied with the growth of Minneapolis in 
every branch of its commercial develop- 
ment. The Central Market and Com- 
mission Row are his creations. The mar- 
ket, designated to confine the wholesale 
commission business as well as other 
wholesale lines, to the district north 
of Hennepin avenue and west of Fourth 
street, considered a model of its kind 
throughout the country. It is largely 
due to the establishment of Commis- 
sion Row that the fruit and commission 
business of Minneapolis is greater than 
that of any other city in the northwest. 

Mr. Walker is largely responsible for 
the existence of St. Louis Park, a sub- 
urb of Minneapolis, built upon a tract 
of land owned by Mr. Walker, by the 
Land and Investment company. Mr. 
Walker was the originator of the Busi- 
ness Men's Union, which for many 
years was a potent factor in the devel- 
opment of the city. He is an ardent pa- 
tron of the Y. M. C. A., giving to it 
freely of his time and money and en- 
joying the distinction of being a mem- 
ber of the national committee; for in 
the development of his career a trend 
toward things religious and philanthrop- 
ic asserted itself. With his wife ]\Ir, 
Walker has turned his attention to and 
dealt generously for the uplifting of the 
fallen and the needy. Were his place 
in the world of trade not so firmly es- 
tablished, he might be known of men 
for his good deeds alone. 

Mr. Walker's career has been remark- 
able for originality of method and 
strict business integrity. His word has 
always been as good as his bond. Ex- 
tremely liberal in the use of his wealth 
his charities are unlimited; all classes 
have been more or less benefited by 
his beneficience. At the time of the 
grasshopper visitation in 1875, by which 
the farmers of the western part of the 
state of Minnesota were reduced to a 
condition of poverty and semi-starva- 
tion pitiful to contemplate. Mr. Walker's 
eflForts in behalf of suffering humanity 
were untiring. 

As soon as the grasshopper scourge 
had disappeared he organized a scheme 
for the raising of a late crop that was 
of inestimable value to settlers. He 
bought up all the turnip seed and like- 
wise that of buckwheat to be had in the 
twin cities and Chicago. 

He visited the afflicted sections. He 



made up the seed into paper packages 
and hiring teams he conducted a system- 
atic distribution over many townships, 
The season was so far advanced that 
only these late crops could be attempt- 
ed. 

News of his free distribution of seeds 
spread as if on the wing and many 
farmers walked fifteen or twenty miles 
to meet the teams and thus avail them- 
selves of Mr. Walker's beneficence. 

For many years he was one of the 
managers of the state reform school, 
laboring untiringly for the reclaiming 
of waifs on the world's tide. 

But as one settles on this phase of 
Mr. Walker's many sided character and 
decides him preeminent for philanthro- 
py, some other bent stands out. There- 
in he is truly like the German emperor, 
for hardly does the narrator turn to 
what he would term a distinguishing 
characteristic, than this noble-minded 
man stands forth in the light of a stud- 
ent and writer. Then, as this talent 
looms out, apparently distinguishing 
him from others, comes a hint af artis- 
tic discrimination, and one delves in the 
depths of a love for the beautiful, as 
manifested in the patronage of arts, 
drawing inspiration for a sketch of a 
man known far and near as a connois- 
seur. 

INTERESTED IN THE LIBRARY. 

Looking for a moment on Mr. Walk- 
er's literary turn of mind, his labors 
of love for his fellow man in the estab- 
lishment of libraries present themselves. 
For fifteen years or more Mr. Walker 
worked systematically and persistently 
to build up the old Athenaeum — a joint 
stock company — into a fine public libra- 
ry, and through the agency, assistance 
and good will of various other citizens 
he succeeded in the great task. Recog- 
nizing his achievement, the library 
board insisted on his acting as its presi- 
dent. 

For many years he worked amidst 
the most persistent and determined op- 
position from various persons and was 
seriously misunderstood and misappre- 
hended. The records of these years 
show numerous communications, per- 
sonal letters and criticisms and his an- 
swers, regarding the part taken by him 
in the old Anthenaeum in his endeavors 
to change it from a rigid, close corpo- 
ration into this public institution, which 
is now a source of so much pride and 
satisfaction to the people. 

No man in the state has taken great- 
er interest or a more active part in any 
public institution than he has in this, 
expending a large amount of time and 
money in working the desired transfor- 
mation. The magnificent library build- 
ing of the city of Minneapolis may be 
said to be a monument to his persever- 
ance. It contains not only a splendid 



library, but also is the home of the 
Minnesota Academy of Natural Science, 
an institution with which Mr. Walker 
has been identified for years and which 
he has helped more materially than any 
other man. 

In this building also dwells the Min- 
neapolis Society of Fine Arts and its 
art gallery, which contains many choice 
paintings, is made the richer by loans 
of some of Mr. Walker's choicest can- 
vases. 

In aiding to develop the public library 
Mr. Walker has not lost sight of book 
collecting to gratify his personal, pri- 
vate tastes. On the shelves in his home 
may be found scores of valuable vol- 
umes dealing with science, art, theology 
and philosophy. 

This retreat is his delight and in 
hours of ease he gives himself up to the 
research and study for which the mind 
of the youth in college days hungered 
with little opportunity for gratification. 

Here in his years of maturity his boy- 
hood dreams are realized. Here he 
communes with the master minds 
whose teachings were denied him in 
his boyhood and from the erudition 
thus nurtured and ripened he takes keen 
delight in giving to the world literary 
works which mirror his talents and 
reflect the soul of a man who has known 
God and held His image ever before 
him in his struggles through the drear 
valley of cold, hard commercialism, 
too often honeycombed by iniquitous 
pitfalls and glittering temptations of a 
pathway paved with gold. 

Turning his versatile mind from liter- 
ature to art Mr. Walker has for a score 
of years past been directing much of his 
attention to the collection of paintings, 
bronzes, marbles and other works of 
art. He bears a wide reputation of 
being a connoisseur of rare discrimina- 
tion. Yearly he searches the studios 
and ateliers for articles of virtu, for can- 
vases enriched by the genius of old 
masters and modern. 

His collection today rivals that of the 
best eastern collector and the owner 
himself is frequently surprised at the 
high comparative rating given this col- 
lection by those who have seen the 
world's best galleries and who do not 
hesitate to place this in the first rank. 
These are the artists whose canvases 
line the walls of the Walker gallery: 

GEMS OF THE COLLECTION. 

Achenbach, Anastasi, Anders, Barker, 
Benedictor, Berry, Bierstadt, Bogert, 
Bol; Bonheur, Rosa; Bonheur, August 
Francois; Both, Bouguereau, Boulan- 
ger, Breton, Brown, Busson, Cabanel, 
Cazin, Cederstrom, Chaigneau, Cipriani, 
Claus, Coomans, Corot, Crochepierre, 
Crome, Cuyp, Dahl, David, DeBrush, 
DeHaas, Delphy, Demont-Breton, Deve, 



Diaz, Dupre, Ernst, Essenlins, Faulk- 
ner, Ferrier, Foscari, Francais, Franck, 
Frere, Froment, Gainsborough, Geri- 
cault, Hamilton, Hamman, Hart, James 
M.; Hart, William; Hermann, Hire, Ho- 
garth, Ingres, Inness, Isabey, Jacque, 
Jacquin, Jazet, Jettell, Johnson, O. S., 
Julien, Kaufmann, Kaulbach, Klombeck, 
Verboeckhoven, Knaus, Laurens, Law- 
rence, LeBrun, LeCompte, du Nuoy, Le- 
febre, Lefevre, Lely, Lemmens, Lerolle, 
Leveridge, Lossow, Loutherbourg, 
Maes, Marihat, Martaens, Massani, Mes- 
gregny, Matsu, Michel. Minor, Monti- 
celli, Moran, Morland, Parrocel, Parton, 
Peale, Pezant, Phillippoteau, Plassan, 
Pokitanow, Poole, Pyne, Rau, Richet, 
Riedel, Ritzberger, Rix, Robie, Rosier, 
Rousseau, Ruisbael, Schandel, Schenck, 
Schreiber, Schriner, Schreyer. Schuch, 
Schusselle. Sinkel, Smith, Tait, Thorp, 
Turner, Unterberger, Vander Venne, 
Van Marcke, Verboeckhoven, Vernet, 
Veronese, Vibert, Vuyllefroy, Walker, 
Watson, Weisse, West, Westerbeek, 
Wilson, Zanpighi, Zein, Beechey, Car- 
pentire, Coello, Cotes, Coypel, Harpig- 
nies, Holbein, KaufFmann. I.aurence, 
Max, Opie, Del Piombo, Pourbus. Rae- 
burn, Raphael, VanRijn, Reni, Rigaud, 
Rubens, VanDyck, Vercke-Heyde. 

This list of names is incomplete, in 
that Mr. Walker is constantly adding to 
his splendid collection. For the most 
part, it is hung in his private art gallery, 
a spacious series of rooms which form 
a part of his beautiful residence near 
the public library building. In the lat- 
ter structure are some half hundred 
more of Mr. Walker's paintings, loaned 
to the city that visitors to this home of 
culture may feast their eyes upon its 
treasures. 

And here again does Mr. Walker's 
ever-dominant philanthropy assert it- 
self. For not satisfied with giving to 
the eyes of public library visitors the 
pleasure and profit of a view of his 
canvases which he has loaned to the 
city, Mr. Walker throws his private 
gallery open to the public, refusing to 
seclude from the public eye, as does 
the selfish art collecter, the treasures 
of his quest in painters' retreats. 

This private gallery is daily visited by 
lovers of art. It is one of the well- 
known and much sought places of in- 
terest in Minneapolis and to its doors 
are welcome the man of lowly rank as 
well as the traveler in search of a feast 
of art. 

This, then, is the manner of man who 
is recognized as Minneapolis' foremost 
citizen. A close glance at his character 
reveals a man of strength — one with 
whom to plan is to execute and whose 
marvelous powers of grasping details and 
systematizing all of his undertakings, 
combined with his unswerving tenacity 
of purpose, his impenetrable integrity, 
render him one who knows not what it 



means to fail, once he sets out to ac- 
complish a thing which his analytical 
mind has told him is possible of accom- 
plishment. He is an earnest Christian, 
who strives to communicate to all with 
whom he comes in contact in his daily 
life that God-fearing, humanitarian spirit 
which has filled his soul to overflowing 
from the time he first lisped his prayers 



at his mother's knee in the little Ohio 
home. Modest withal, domestic in his 
tastes, he yet finds time to build for 
the betterment of man and municipality, 
and when the feet of future generations 
tread the corridors of Minneapolis' hall 
of fame, first in the niches of her saint- 
ed sons will be the noble figure of 
Thomas Barlow Walker. 



An Encouraging View of Trusts. 



Minneapolis Journal, May 12, 1903. 



That was a most interesting and m- 
structive address on trusts that Mr. T. 
B. Walker yesterday delivered before 
the local Methodist ministers. It was 
interesting not only for what it con- 
tained, but for its authorship. A poor 
or unsuccessful man can condem trusts 
with force and reason, but he is always 
open to the argument that he is agamst 
them simply because they have and he 
has not. But when a multi-millionaire, 
like Mr. Walker, condemns trusts every 
one listens intently, for he is sure that 



ness world. He specifically condemns 
what is called a "trust." A trust is not 
merely an immense corporation, but it 
is one that seeks to keep prices at an 
artificial or extortionate level, that un- 
dertakes by means of effective control 
or actual monopoly to pay dividends on 
fictitious capital. Moreover, the men 
at the head of trusts are, as Mr. Walk- 
er points out, animated not only by 
the desire to make money, but by the 
lust of power; they really aim at con- 
trolling as much of the property of 



hat he says is not colored by personal the world as they can get their hands 

"^ ■ ''-■- '^-~'- on, not so much for the acquisition 

of wealth as for the power it gives. 



misfortune or envy. Keeping this fact 
in mind, it is doubly interesting to find 
that Mr. Walker is not only an opponent 
but a radical opponent of trusts, and 
that he condemns them on both eco- 
nomic and moral grounds. Mr. Walk- 
er finds that the trust is not an eco- 
nomic necessity, but merely the out- 
growth of greed for power and money. 
He denies that it can more economical- 
ly conduct business than smaller or- 
ganizations and he asserts that it is 
unprincipled. 

It is a most hopeful sign of the times 
when such a man as Mr. Walker dares 
and does speak out his opinion and 
judgment of trusts. There has been too 
much passiveness, if not cowardice, 
among business men in this respect. 
Business men who saw independent 
businesses daily devoured by the trusts, 
and not knowing whether their turn 
would come next, have been hypnotized 
by the oft-repeated assertion that the 
trust is merely a fulfillment of manifest 
business destiny, and have been far too 
willing to join the first trust that came 
along. There are now signs of a re- 
action towards individualism in business. 
Men are recovering from their fear of 
the trusts' supposed unbounded capaci- 
ties and are becoming brave enough to 
compete with them. While Mr. Walker, 
like Andrew Carnegie, maintains that as 
a rule the business in which the owner 
is a worker has great advantages over 
an immense corporation, he does not 
undertake to say that there is not a 
place for large corporations in the busi- 



None can deny that at some point 
there is danger to the state in the 
acquisition of property sought for its 
power-conferring quality and in pos- 
session of property used for power. If 
Pierpont Morgan owned all the proper- 
ty in the United States the government 
of this nation or of any of the states 
would be a hollow mockery, for the 
man who owned all the property would 
really own all the people. 

Accepting Mr. Walker's analysis of 
trusts as correct, the inference is that 
it is only a matter of time until some 
of them will collapse or become harm- 
less. But those that have a natural 
monopoly or a process monopoly are 
likely to continue. These must be regu- 
lated and restricted, because it lies in 
their power to do great evil, and they 
are likely to exercise that power. We 
thus get back to the elemental argument 
for government control of monopolistic 
business enterprises, which is that a 
free people cannot permit their liberties 
to be circumscribed merely because the 
circumscribing tendency is now eco- 
nomic instead of political, as of old. 



T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis, who 
helped to survey the first line of rail- 
road to build into Duluth, the old Lake 
Superior & Mississippi, now known as 
the Northern Pacific short line between 
the Head of the Lakes and the Twin 
Cities, is a guest at the Spalding. 
(Herald, Duluth, Minn., Aug. 3, 1905.) 



PROGRESSIVE MEN OF MINNESOTA. 

Edited by Marion D. Shutter, D. D. and J. S. McLain, M. A., 1897. 



MINNESOTA'S FOREMOST CITIZEN. 



Thomas Barlow Walker is one of 
the most honored names in the city 
of Minneapolis, where he is known not 
so much for his large fortune as for 
his numerous philanthropies, public 
and private. Mr. Walker was born 
February 1, 1840, at Xenia, Ohio, the 
second son of Piatt Bayless and Ans- 
tis K. (Barlow) Walker. His mater- 
nal grandfather was Hon. Thomas Bar- 
low, of New York. When the subject 
of this sketch was a child his father 
fitted out a train for the newly dis- 
covered gold fields in California, in- 
vesting all his means in that enter- 
prise. While on his way to California 
he fell a victim to the cholera scourge. 
This threw the lad upon his own re- 
sources and the remainder of his boy- 
hood was a hard struggle with poverty. 
He had a natural aptitude for study, 
however, and notwithstanding the ad- 
versity which he suffered managed to 
acquire an excellent education. From 
his ninth to his sixteenth year he at- 
tended only short terms in the public 
schools. At that time his family re- 
moved to Berea, Ohio, for the better 
educational advantages to be attained 
at Baldwin University. Here he was 
obliged to devote most of his time to 
a clerkship in a country store in order 
to support himself, so that he was able 
to attend the university only one term 
of each year. His industry and ca- 
pacity were such, however, that he soon 
outstripped many of the regular stu- 
dents. At nineteen he was employed 
as traveling salesman by Fletcher Hu- 
let, manufacturer of the Berea grind- 
stones. His travels brought young 
Walker to Paris, Illinois, where he be- 
came engaged in the purchase of tim- 
ber land and in cutting cross ties for 
the Terre Haute & St. Louis Railroad. 
Unfortunately, after eighteen months 
of successful work, he was robbed of 
nearly all his earnings through the 
failure of the railroad company. He 
then returned to Ohio and during the 
next winter taught a district school 
with much success and was subsequent- 
ly elected to the assistant professor- 
ship of mathematics in the Wisconsin 
State University. This position he was 
obliged to decline, however, because of 
arrangements already made to enter 
the service of the government survey. 
While at McGregor, Iowa, Mr. Walk- 
er chanced to meet J. M. Robinson, a 
citizen of the then young but thriving 
town of Minneapolis. Mr. Robinson 
presented the attractions and prospects 



of the young city with such persuasive 
eloquence that Mr. Walker determined 
at once to settle there, taking passage 
one the first steamboat for St. Paul, 
and bringing with him a consignment 
of grindstones. There he met an un- 
usually intelligent and energetic young 
man employed by the transportation 
company as clerk and workman on 
the wharf, of whom he has been a firm 
and trusted friend ever since. That 
young man was James J. Hill. From 
St. Paul Mr. Walker came over the 
only railroad in the state, to Minne- 
apolis, and within an hour after his 
arrival entered the service of George 
B. Wright, who had a contract to sur- 
vey government lands. The surveying 
expedition was soon abandoned owing 
to an Indian outbreak, and returning 
to Minneapolis Mr. Walker devoted 
the winter to his books having desk 
room in the office of L. M. Stewart, 
an attorney. The following summer 
was occupied in examining the lands 
for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. 
In the fall he returned to his Ohio home 
at Berea, where he was married De- 
cember 19, 1863, to Harriet G., the 
youngest daughter of Hon. Fletcher 
Hulet, a lady whose name is a syn- 
onym in Minneapolis for good works. 
Returning to Minneapolis, Mr. Walker 
entered upon an active career which 
made him not only a participant in, but 
the chief promoter of, many good 
works and enterprises in this city. In 
the summer of 1864 he ran the first 
trial line of the St. Paul and Duluth 
Railroad, after which he gave atten- 
tion for years to the government sur- 
vey. In 1868 he began to invest in 
pine lands and thus laid the founda- 
tion for the large fortune which he 
subsequently acquired. His first part- 
ners in the business were L. Butler 
and Howard W. Mills, under the firm 
name of Butler, Mills & Walker, the 
first two furnishing the capital while 
Mr. Walker supplied the labor and ex- 
perience. This led also to the exten- 
sive m'anufacture of lumber by the 
old firm of Butler, Mills & Walker, 
afterwards L. Butler & Co., and later 
Butler & Walker. Of later years his 
most important operations in this re- 
gard have been his large lumber mills 
at Crookston and Grand Forks, both 
of which have been leading factors in 
the development of the Northwest. Mr. 
Walker's business career has been 
characterized by strict integrity and 
honorable dealing, but he has not been 



content to acquire money simply. At 
the time of the grasshopper visitation 
he not only labored for the immediate 
relief of the starving, b utorganized a 
plan for the raising of late crops which 
were of inestimable value. One of the 
most creditable examples of his pub- 
lic spirit and munificent influence was 
his organization of the public library. 
It was due to his effort that this insti- 
tution became a public instead of a 
private collection and was made avail- 
able to the public without even so 
much as a deposit for the privilege of 
using the books. To him also the city 
owes more than to any one else the 
possession of the magnificent library 
building which it now owns. As would 
seem right and proper under the cir- 
cumstances, Mr. Walker has been con- 
tinuously president of the library 
board since its organization in 1885 to 
the present time. To him also is due, 
the credit for the inception and princi- 
pal support of the School of Fine Arts, 
of which society he is president. Mr. 
Walker's love for art is fully exempli- 
fied in the splendid collection of pic- 
tures in his own private gallery, a col- 
lection which has few if any equals in 
this country, among private individuals. 
His home library is also an evidence of 
the scholarly tastes and studious habits 
of its owner. The Minnesota Academy 
of Natural Science is another institu- 
tion much indebted to him for its past 
support and present fortunate situa- 
tion. Not the least important of the 
services rendered by him to Minneapo- 
lis is his devotion to the building up of 
the material interest of the city in the 
line of manufactures, jobbing, etc. It 
was through his instrumentality that 
there was organized the Business 
Men's Union, which has accomplished 
a great deal for the material interests 
of the city. The Minneapolis Land 
and Investment Company is another 
institution at the head of which Mr. 
Walker stands and upon which he has 
expended much time an money. This 
enterprise is located a short distance 
west of the city, where a company 
organized by Mr. Walker purchased a 
large tract of land and established a 
number of important industries. This 
manufacturing center is directly tri- 
butary to Minneapolis and will no 
doubt in the course of a few years be- 
come a part of the city. The Flour 
City National Bank was organized in 
1887 and a year later Mr. Walker was 
elected, without his knowledge or con- 
sent, to the office of president. He 
accepted the duties and responsibili- 
ties of his position, against his protest, 
and discharged them until January 1, 
1894, when he peremptorily resigned. 
Three years ago Mr. Walker also or- 
ganized a company of which he is 
president for the construction of the 



Central City Market, probably one of 
the finest market buildings in the 
United States. This necessarily brief 
sketch but imperfectly outlines the 
numerous activities and beneficent pub- 
lic services of a man who has been 
identified very largely with nearly 
every good work and public enterprise 
in the city of Minneapolis. No man 
was ever more favored in the marriage 
relation. Mrs. Walker has been the 
inspiration and participant of her hus- 
band's useful and successful life, and 
as a leader in every philanthropic ef- 
fort has brought honor to his name. 



B. WALKER REWARDS AGED 
BENEFACTRESS. 



(Tribune, Minneapolis, Aug. 20, '05.) 

T. B. Walker has purchased a 360- 
acre homestead at Hatchet Creek moun- 
tain, California, and presented the deed 
to Mrs. Julia A. Carberry, the original 
owner of the property. 

The gift was in the nature of a re- 
ward for services rendered about five 
years ago when Mr. Walker was taken 
ill while traveling on the Hatchet Creek 
mountain. The Carberry homestead 
was near by and there Mr. Walker was 
taken, where Mrs. Carberry cared for 
and nursed him back to health. 

Mrs. Carberry was 80 years old at 
the time and had been a widow for 
about a year. During his stay Mr. Walk- 
er learned considerable of the widow's 
history and ascertained that before her 
husband's death it had been arranged 
between the two that whoever died first 
was to be buried in a spot in a garden 
near the home of the old couple. 

Judge Carberry died in 1899, and the 
arrangement was carried out to the let- 
ter, the widow making daily trips to 
the grave and keeping the place in good 
order. 

Soon afterwards, however, Mrs Car- 
berry's son came home and on the 
promise that they would go to Oakland 
and live in peace and ease, induced his 
mother to deed the homestead over to 
him. The deeds were duly executed, 
but, unbeknown to his mother, he im- 
mediately sold the place to a man 
named Kirk. Instead of going to Oak- 
land, the son took the old lady to a 
place across the river called Redding. 

Without home, friends or money, 
Mrs. Carberry returned to the old 
homestead, only to find that the doors 
were shut against her by the new ten- 
ants. She then went to a tumble-down 
shack at the far end of the premises and 
has lived there ever since. 

When these facts were called to the 
attention of Mr. Walker, he purchased 
the Carberry place from the new own- 
ers for $3,700, and handed the deed to 
Mrs. Carberry. 



AMERICA'S 


SUCCESSFUL 


MEN. 


Edited by Henry Hall, 1896. 





THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



Thomas Barlow Walker, manufac- 
turer and philanthropist, born in Xenia, 
O., Feb. 1, 1840, is of English descent 
and a son of Piatt Bayliss Walker, a 
native of New Jersey and a man of 
unusual vigor and character. The 
senior Walker became a prosperous 
merchant in Xenia and promoted vari- 
ous enterprises in several States and 
lost several fortunes. He repeatedly 
resumed mercantile pursuits in Xenia, 
and in that line of activity was always 
successful. In 1849, he organized a 
company of forty-six men for the over- 
land trip to California and supplied 
the outfit, but en route the company 
was attacked with cholera. Those who 
were stricken down were deserted in 
terror by every survivor except Mr. 
Walker, who nobly remained with 
several of the sick men until they died. 
Seeking finally to overtake the party 
on horseback, Mr. Walker died under 
a tree by the wayside near Westport, 
Mo., and was there buried. 

Thomas B. Walker was a village boy, 
expert with the gun and rifle and at 
the game of checkers, thinking much 
of sport and little of work until the 
age of sixteen, when he moved, with 
his family, to Berea, O. The serious 
side of life then claimed attention, and 
Thomas toiled with axe and maul in 
cutting fire wood and hard wood lum- 
ber for spokes, bowls and blocks. In 
these labors, he was so successful as to 
be able to give employment to many 
students of Berea college. Meanwhile, 
he gained an education, partly at Bald- 
win university, in Berea, but mainly by 
the persistent use of spare hours, which 
he devoted to his books. Books have 
been his constant companions all his 
life. He also travelled as a salesman 
for manufacturers in Berea; and at 
Paris, 111., after working at the paint- 
er's trade, he took a contract to supply 
the railroad with ties and cordwood, 
employing from forty to eighty men 
in a lumber camp for a year and a half. 

When the Civil War broke out, Mr. 
Walker joined two artillery companies 
in succession, but neither was sent to 
the front, and he then joined a third 
at Lowell, Mich., but this also was not 
called for until long afterward. Un- 
occupied, he then sought employment 
in Michigan, but being unable to find 
it, he applied at the State University of 
Wisconsin. The Dean greatly desired 
his services in mathematics, but the 
Board had no money to pay an assist- 
ant. Pressing northward, Mr. Walk- 



er finallj^ reached Minneapolis, which 
has ever since been his home. There 
he engaged in surveys and spent a win- 
ter of hard study upon law books. Dec. 
19, 1863, at Berea, he was united in 
marriage to Harriet G., daughter of 
the Hon. Fletcher Hulett. 

Mr. Walker has always been an ac- 
tive influence in his city and state and 
promoter of many important enter- 
prises. For several years, he was em- 
ployed in government and railroad sur- 
veys, and thereby became acquainted 
with the value of the vast unlocated 
pine forests of Minnesota. In 1868, he 
succeeded in interesting men of wealth 
to invest jointly for his and their bene- 
fit in the pine timber lands, and after- 
ward engaged with the same men in 
the lumber trade and turned large 
amounts of the standing timber into 
logs and timber, from which he paid 
for his share in the investments. His 
holdings are now estimated to be more 
than 200,000 acres. He is managing 
partner of the firm of Walker & Ake- 
ley, of Minneapolis, who are extensive- 
ly engaged in the sale of timber, logs and 
lumber; president of the Red River 
Lumber Co., with mills at Crooks- 
ton, Minn., and Grand Forks, N. D.; 
and at the head of the St. Louis Park 
Syndicate, which is building a suburban 
city on the boundary of Minneapolis. 
The company has laid out about twelve 
thousand lots and there are various 
large factories, a fine electric railway, 
business houses, and nearly two hun- 
dred residences on this property. He 
was also for several years president of 
the Flour City National Bank. It was 
Mr. Walker who constructed the Min- 
neapolis central city market, one of the 
finest in America, but recently de- 
stroyed by fire. With B. F. Nelson 
and his son, Gilbert Walker, he is an 
owner of the Hennepin Paper Co., and 
is engaged in many other enterprises, 
devoted to building up Minneapolis. 
He organized The Business Men's 
Union some years ago, which has had 
great influence in the development of 
the city. Through Mr. Walker's in- 
strumentality and many years of work, 
the old Athenaeum Library Associa- 
tion was developed into the Public Li- 
brary, which stands now third or fourth 
in circulation among those of the cities 
in this country. He has been presid- 
ing officer of the Board since its or- 
ganization in 1885, and was for fifteen 
years previous to that managing direct- 
or of the old Athenaeum. 



While Mr. Walker is a strong Re- 
pubican, it is interesting to note, that 
when a vote was taken by a Democrat- 
ic newspaper in Minneapolis for the 
citizen most popular and in best stand- 
ing among the people, Mr. Walker re- 
ceived over a thousand more votes than 
any one else. Mr. Walker possesses 
what is considered the finest private 
art collection in the Northwest and a 
large library of books, which he finds 
time to use daily, although he proba- 
bly devotes more time to close, hard 
business work than any other man in 
Minneapolis. He is a firm believer in 
a protective tariff. 

Mr. Walker's married life has been 



a happy one. Of his eight children, 
seven survive. Noted for philanthropic 
spirit, Mr. Walker is expected always 
to head the list in all subscriptions for 
charitable purposes or for the building 
up of his adopted city, and his active 
personal efforts and large expenditures 
for relief at the time of the grasshop- 
per visitation are historic. Beginning 
his career under difficulties, he has 
worked his way to the first rank 
among educated, self-made men. He 
has large wealth, good judgment, lib- 
erality and public spirit, and is a con- 
spicuous example of what the American 
youth can accomplish by intelligent 
and persistent work and hard study. — 




Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 21, 1897. 



T. B. Walker's tariff pamphlet, which 
The Tribune published in full some 
days ago, is quite generally commented 
on by the press. The comments of 
the Republican press are as a rule very 
favorable, although some of the pa- 
pers, like the New York Tribune and 
the St. Paul Pioneer Press, assume a 
patronizing tone, and say in effect: 
"Mr. Walker has made a very good 
tariflf argument, but of course we could 
make a better one." The fact is, how- 
ever, that no Republican paper or 
speaker has as yet made a more con- 
vincing argument. No one before has 
so completely demonstrated that pros- 
perity in the country has always been 
coincident with protection to Amer- 
ican industry, and that panic and de- 
pression have been coincident with low 
tariff. 

The Poneer Press, which used to 
make a specialty of advocating (low) 
"tariff reform" between elections and 
supporting the Republican ticket and 
platform during elections, has of late 
become a much more reliable protec- 
tion advocate than formerly, which is 
a gratifying indication of the growth 
of protection ideas. But the P. P. 
either willfully or ignorantly miscon- 
strues Mr. Walker's main contention. 
It says he contends that the higher 
tariff the greater the prosperity, and 
hence that if his doctrine were accept- 
ed tariffs might be run up to an abso- 
lutely prohibitory point and thus prove 
destructive of revenue. 

Mr. Walker makes no such conten- 
tion. He shows from the past history 
of the country that our people have 
prospered under the higher tariffs in 
force, but he does not say, or intimate, 
that there should be no limit to the 



imposition of a tariff. He believes that 
in formulating tariff schedules common 
sense should prevail the same as in any 
other kind of business. If the princi- 
ple of protection is admitted to be the 
correct one, then the task of adjust- 
ing the rate of duty is a work for ex- 
perts or men who have made a study of 
trade conditions. It is evident, in the 
first place, that the rate of duty should 
be sufficient to protect American labor 
against the lower wage scale prevail- 
ing in competing countries. It is also 
desirable to protect American capital 
against the cheaper capital (lower 
rates of interest) prevailing in older 
and more densely settled countries. 
For instance, if the prevailing rate for 
money in the United States is from 
6 to 8 per cent, and in England from 
3 to 4 per cent, the men who invest 
their own or borrowed capital in man- 
ufacturing enterprises here ought to 
have an equivalent protection. Then 
if the higher rate of duty can be imposed 
without cutting down the government's 
revenue below its necessities, such 
higher duty ought to be imposed. In 
other words, duties should be adjusted 
as nearly as possible to existing trade 
conditions, keeping in view the neces- 
sities of both protection and revenue. 
It does not stand to reason that a man 
of Mr. Walker's experience and well 
known business sagacity would enunci- 
ate a hard and fast rule that the higher 
the duty the greater the protection. 
That would be equivalent to saying 
that in his lumber business, for in- 
stance, the higher the prices the great- 
er his profits, and then fixing his prices 
so high that nobody would buy of him. 
Prices of merchandise are adjusted to 
markets and conditions. A dealer aims 



to get all he can, but if he understands 
his business he does not put his own 
prices way above those asked by his 
competitors. If prices are too high, 
no business results. If protective 
tariffs are too high, no revenue would 
result. There are some articles on 
which it would pay to make duty 
prohibitory. Such are articles of 
which we could easily produce a sur- 
plus in this country. On such articles 
our manufacturers are entitled to the 
whole domestic market and to such 
foreign markets as they may command. 
The old contention that a protective 
prohibitory tariff enables the domestic 
manufacturer to practice extortion on 
the consumer has been disproven again 
and again by the fact that in high 
tariff times many articles of domestic 
manufacture sold in this country at a 
price per yard or specific quantity ab- 



solutely below the cost of the duty on 
such quantity. Competition regulates 
that. If it is found that one manufac- 
turer is making an enormous profit on 
a protected article, others immediately 
rush to engage in the business and 
knock prices down. Every housewife 
knows that she has frequently bought 
American calico at a price per yard 
actually less than the duty per yard 
would have been on imported calico. 
If the manufacturer always adds the 
duty to the price of his goods, such 
things could not be. 

The Democratic papers treat Mr. 
Walker's pamphlet rather gingerly. 
The St. Paul Globe characterized it as 
a weak argument and promised to re- 
ply to it in detail, but up to the pres- 
ent writing, it has not ventured to 
tackle the job. It evidently finds it 
too hard a nut to crack. 



First Citizens of the Republic. 

Publi.hed by L. R. Hamerly & Co., New York, 1906. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



Thomas B. Walker has been classed 
variously as a captain of industry, phi- 
lanthropist, patron of art, scholar, 
scientist, litterateur, municipal expert, 
civil engineer, forestry expert, lecturer, 
preacher, student of economics, travel- 
er, lumberman and financier. It is safe 
to say that few communities embrace 
among their citizens one who can just- 
ly claim to all these titles in one per- 
son, but such distinction has been free- 
ly acorded to this distinguished Minne- 
sotan. The space allotted to this 
sketch is all too brief to record all of 
the eventful features in the career of 
this remarkable man, and a mere out- 
line will be all that will be attempted. 

Thomas Barlow Walker belongs to 
that illustrous brotherhood of men 
who have won their way from a small 
beginning, in the face of difficulties, 
that galaxy of indomitable spirits that 
has given to Ohio her wondrous place 
as the native state of presidents, states- 
men and leaders in the world of in- 
dustry. He was born in Xenia, Green 
county, February 1, 1840, the third 
child of Piatt Bayliss and Anstis Bar- 
low Walker. His parents were in cir- 
cumstances considered comfortable in 
those days of the development of the 
western reserve. His father was an 
artisan, but by instinct and practice 
he was imbued with those character- 
istics which in these latter days of 
strenuous development make a man 
the successful promoter of great en- 
terprises. Thus did the son come 
naturally by his wonderful business 
sagacity and acumen. When the boy 



had reached the age of nine years 
there came into his life an event 
which brought sorrow to his mother but 
was of double significance to the child, 
whose tender years prevented the real- 
ization of its full meaning. His father 
had embarked in a venture, one of 
magnitude for those times, investing 
all his means in a wagon train of 
merchandise wMth which he started on 
the long and perilous route to Cali- 
fornia, in that period marked by the 
gold fever of the virgin west. Hardly 
had the expedition reached the gate- 
way to the western plains when its 
chief sickened and died. With the 
father's death went his entire accumu- 
lations, and the widow was left penni- 
less. But she was made of brave stuff, 
and she battled heroically in her en- 
deavors to provide for her orphaned 
children. Spurred on by the noble ef- 
forts of his devoted mother, young 
Thomas began to bend his efforts to- 
ward taking up the battle which his 
mother was thus obliged for a time to 
bear alone. His opportunities for 
schooling were few indeed, but his 
mother's teachings so developed his 
mind that at the age of sixteen he was 
enabled to matriculate at Baldwin 
University, at Berea, Ohio. But his 
attendance upon the classes was not 
continuous, as he had obtained em- 
ployment as a traveling salesman, and 
many of his studies were pursued 
while on the road. He carried his 
school books with him on all his trips, 
and from these he drew the knowledge 
which in later years served him in such 



good stead. The difficulties of his 
school days became the foundation of 
his studious habits, for then it was 
he acquired the custom of adding to 
the storehouse of his knowledge new 
insight into the subjects which have 
gone to broaden and expand the scope 
of his remarkable career. His first 
venture as a business man on his own 
resources was when he entered into a 
contract when he was nineteen years 
of age, to supply the cross-ties and 
cordwood to a railroad having its 
terminus at Paris, Illinois. The prin- 
cipal asset remaining, however, after 
eighteen months of unceasing toil, was 
the experience he had gained in wood- 
craft, as the company failed and he lost 
the greater part of the proceeds of his 
labors. His experience in the woods 
had given him a strong taste for for- 
estry, and he decided to make it a sub- 
ject of serious study, and this fact had 
an important bearing on his future 
fortunes. 

Returning to Berea after his disas- 
trous venture in Illinois, he resumed his 
original calling of traveling salesman. 
His travels were mainly in the states 
of Wisconsin and Iowa, and it was 
while in the town of McGregor, in the 
latter state, that a chance remark from 
a casual acquaintance changed the 
whole course of his life and directed 
his footsteps into that brilliant path- 
way of success from which he never 
departed. The man who thus un- 
consciously influenced Mr. Walker's 
career was J. M. Robinson, of Minne- 
apolis. Mr. Robinson's account of the 
golden promises of the far Northwest 
were listened to with unusual interest, 
and within a few hours he was on his 
way to investigate its possibilities for 
himself. The result was that he ended 
at once his vocation as a traveling 
salesman and connected himself with 
a government surveying party under 
the leadership of George B. Wright. 
Quick to grasp the splendid oppor- 
tunities for the development of the 
metropolis by the splendid water pow- 
er afforded by the falls of Minnehaha, 
he decided to make this spot his fu- 
ture home. Having secured a foot- 
hold, he returned to Ohio, where he 
culminated an attachment which had 
sprung up during his college days in 
Berea, by marrying, on the 19th of De- 
cember, 1863, Harriet G., youngest 
daughter of Hon. Fletcher Hulet, his 
former employer. Mr. Walker's ex- 
periences as a surveyor were not un- 
accompanied by dangers and hardships, 
for the hostility of the redman was 
particularly felt at this period in this 
vicinity. After three years of this life 
he severed his connection with the 
government and was engaged for a 
year in the survey of the St. Paul and 
Duluth railway. Here his knowledge 



of forestry opened his eyes to the pos- 
sibilities of the lumber industry in the 
country which he traversed, and result- 
ed in his becoming the pioneer of Min- 
nesota magnates. Although he was 
without sufficient funds at this time to 
embark in lumbering on a large scale, 
his sterling qualities commended him 
to Dr. Levi Butler and Howard Mills, 
who took him into partnership and 
organized the firm of Butler, Mills & 
Walker. The experience and knowl- 
edge which had cost him so dearly in 
his youth was counted as an offset 
equal to the capital invested by the 
others. He managed the business of 
the firm and personally operated the 
camps, the mills and the lumber yards. 
After several years of great success the 
firm was dissolved, and the business 
came under the sole ownership of Mr. 
Walker. It grew to vast proportions, 
and his holdings were eventually spread 
over northern Minnesota and Dakota, 
one of his many mills being located at 
St. Anthony's Falls, and another at 
Grand Forks. It is needless to add 
that Mr. Walker's enterprise brought 
him great wealth. In 1874 he erected 
a fine residence in the fashionable sec- 
tion of Minneapolis, and to this he 
brought his affectionate mother, and 
there his countless deeds of affection 
were performed until 1883, when death 
claimed the noble woman who gave to 
the world one of the men who were 
born to serve humanity and whose prog- 
ress had far exceeded her fondest 
dreams. 

Mr. Walker's career has been re- 
markable for originality of method and 
strict business integrity. Extremely 
liberal in the use of his wealth, his 
charities are unlimited; all classes have 
been more or less benefited by his 
beneficence. With his wife he has 
turned his attention largely to the up- 
lifting of the fallen and needy. Were 
his place in the world of trade not so 
firmly established, he might be known 
of men for his good deeds alone. No 
man in the state of Minnesota has tak- 
en greater interest or a more active part 
in her public institutions. The mag- 
nificent library building of the city of 
Minneapolis may be said to be a monu- 
ment to his liberality and persever- 
ance. It contains not only a splendid 
collection of books, but is the home 
of the Minnesota Academy of Natural 
Science, an institution with which Mr. 
Walker has been identified for years 
and which he has helped more ma- 
terially than any other man. In this 
building also dwells the Minneapolis 
Society of Fine Arts and its art gal- 
lery, which contains many choice 
paintings, and which has been made the 
richer by the loan of many choice 
canvases from Mr. Walker's private 
gallery. In aiding to develop the pub- 



lie library he has not neglected to do 
some book collecting to gratify his 
personal private tastes. On the 
shelves in his home may be found 
scores upon scores of valuable vol- 
umes dealing with science, art, the- 
ology and philosophy. This retreat is 
his delight, and in hours of ease he 
gives himself up to the research and 
study for which the mind of the youth 
in college days hungered with little 
opportunity for gratification. Mr. 
Walker has for a score of years been 
directing much of his attention to the 
collection of paintings, bronzes, mar- 
bles and other works of art. He bears 
a wide reputation of being a connois- 
seur of rare discrimination. His col- 
lection today rivals that of the best 
eastern collectors, and the owner is 
himself frequently surprised at the 
high comparative rating given to his 
gallery by those who have seen the 
world's best collections. 

Modest withal, domestic in his tastes, 
Mr. Walker yet finds time to build for 
the betterment of man and municipal- 
ity, and when the feet of future gen- 
erations tread the corridors of Minne- 
apolis' Hall of Fame, first in the niches 
of her distinguished sons will be found 
the noble figure of Thomas Barlow 
Walker. 



THOMAS B. WALKER. 



REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR LIBRARY BOARD. 

The subject of this sketch is Hon. T, 
B. Walker, The Appeal can only char- 
acterize briefly the life of this man. At 
present he is the Republican nominee 
for the Library Board, and also indorsed 
by the Prohibition and Democratic 
parties. As one can note his popularity 
it is needless to doubt his election to the 
office that is being thrust upon him. Mr. 
Walker was born in Xenia, Ohio, 54 
years ago and came to Minneapolis at 
the age of 22, a poor boy and it was 
only through his tireless energy, pluck 
and perseverence, that he acquired his 
great wealth. It may be well said that 
in connection with Mr. Walker's great 
wealth, that his career is remarkable for 
its originality of method, strict business 
integrity and honorable regard for 
others' rights. His word has always 
been as good as his bond. He is ex- 
tremely liberal in the use of his wealth, 
his charities are unlimited. He contri- 
buted to the Labor Temple more than 
three thousand dollars for its mainte- 
nance. This liberality extended to the 
Hinckley fire sufferers to the extent of 
$1,000 in cash, which was more than any 
amount contributed by any other Min- 
neapolis citizen to the ill-fated ones. 

Mr. Walker also placed a glittering 
star in his crown by extending his 
charity to the inhabitants of St. Louis 



Park. The Park is largely owned by 
Mr. Walker, who is looking forward 
to make it one of the leading manufac- 
turing centers in this country. During 
the poverty epidemic last winter he re- 
duced the rent of more than 100 tenants 
one third, and in many cases returned 
the money, besides sending weekly sup- 
plies to large numbers of families. Thus 
it can be seen that he is the possessor 
of the greatest of all gifts. Mr. Walker 
is at present, president of the following 
organizations: Central City Market 
Company, Minneapolis Land & Invest- 
ment Company, Red River Lumber 
Company, and many other important 
connections, including the City Library 
Board. Forth latter he has spent years 
of toil as well as a small fortune for its 
establishment, and to his honor the 
building stands second to none in the 
country, in its beauty of design with an 
unusual selection of the choicest books. 
Mr. Walker stands before us a perfect 
type of generous symmetrical manhood. 
All his life has been an exemplification 
of all that is best in the human heart 
and soul. To the thoughtful student there 
is much to his career to inspire us with 
the fire of emulation. In conclusion I 
wish to say that the honored one of this 
sketch has a collection of superb paint- 
ings in his spacious art gallery that 
will alone echo his fame through this 
country. Mrs. T. B. Walker is to be 
remembered in connection with her hus- 
band, her noble qualifications are like 
those of the subject of this sketch.— The 
Appeal : A National Afro-American 
Newspaper. 



GREAT FUTURE FOR AKELEY. 



T. B. Walker Addresses Members of 
the Akeley Cornet Band at Minne- 
apolis. 

Mr. and Mrs T. B. Walker opened 
the doors of their hospitable home to 
the members of the Akeley Cornet Band 
during their recent visit to Minneapolis. 
They boys were conducted through the 
grand art gallery and also the general 
offices of the Red River Lumber Co., 
and all the office work explained to 
them. Mr. Walker addressed the boys 
at some length touching upon his fa- 
mous art collection. Incidentally he com- 
plimented the boys for their good mu- 
sic, fine appearance and manly conduct. 
The most important statement in his 
address, however, was to the effect that 
it was the intention of the Red River 
Lumber Co. to assist in making Akeley 
one of the largest and best cities in 
Northern Minnesota, by continually en- 
larging the plant here and branching 
out into kindred industries, which will 
necessitate the employment of hundreds 
of men.— Akeley Tribune. 



Biographical History of the Northwest. 



By Alonzo Phelps, A. M. 1890. 



THOMAS B. WALKER. 



What photography is to the human 
face, biography is to the soul. The 
one, with the marvellous pen of light, 
sketches the outward features of phy- 
sical being; the other traces the pro- 
gressive development of mind from in- 
fancy to manhood, demonstrating that 
the diversity of character in individuals 
is as limitless as the physiognomy of 
man. 

In taking notes of the life of Thomas 
Barlow Walker, it will be found that 
he comes into the list of American 
eminent men who have carved their 
pathway up the hill of fame with en- 
ergetic and persistent endeavors. He 
was born in Xenia, Greene County, O., 
February 1, 1840. He is the third child, 
and second son, of Piatt Bayless and 
Anstis Barlow Walker. 

In 1848 the father of the subject of 
this sketch, en route for California, 
haing embarked nearly all of his world- 
ly wealth in the enterprise, fell a vic- 
tim to the cholera at Warrensburg, 
Missouri. In those days, the low ebb 
of commercial honor was such that 
not a dollar of the thousands that had 
been invested came back to the widow 
and four young children, one scarcely 
more than a babe. 

The widow thus bereft was the 
daughter of Hon Thomas Barlow, of 
New York, and sister of Judge Thomas 
Barlow, of Canastota, New York, and 
Judge Moses Barlow, of Greene County, 
Ohio. Though young and inexperi- 
enced in the business of life, she made 
a brave fight against adversity, and 
lived many years to enjoy the fruits 
of her labor, in the homes of her af- 
fectionate children. In 1883, May 23, 
she died at the residence of her son, 
Thomas, of Minneapolis, of whose 
family she had been an honored mem- 
ber for several years. 

It is due to the subject of this bi- 
ography to embrace this brief record 
of his respected parents. It will help 
us to explain and understand some of 
the sources of character which are 
found in the events of his life, and en- 
able us to appreciate inherited ener- 
gies and habits of usefulness, and to 
value the influences of example and 
practical education. 

The early days of Mr. Walker were 
given to industry and study. The ac- 
tivity and bent of his mind may be 
inferred from the fact that he early 
discovered a taste and capacity for the 



most abstruse studies, especially for 
the higher mathematics. He was not 
only a natural student, but a practical 
one. The adverse circumstances sur- 
rounding him in these early years ren- 
dered his opportunities for gaining 
knowledge from books extremely lim- 
ited. But, as some one wisely remarks, 
obstacles sometimes operate as incen- 
tives to success, if the ardent mind is 
powerful enough to grapple with them. 
His thirst for learning was insatiable, 
and from all available sources he gath- 
ered up knowledge. 

In his sixteenth year the family re- 
moved to Berea, Cuyahoga County, 
Ohio, for the better educational ad- 
vantages to be obtained in the Bald- 
win University. This change in the 
locality of the family seems to have 
been the turning point in the life of 
the boy. He, there and then, resolved 
to drop all the boy out of his life, and 
take up the man. Here, for the first 
time, he fully appreciated the worth of 
an education, and determined at any 
cost to obtain it. Though at this time 
financially unable to pursue a collegi- 
ate course of study, he never lost sight 
of his books. Aside from the duties 
of his clerkship, all spare time was rig- 
idly devoted to study. Although his 
average attendance at school did not 
exceed one term in the year, he kept 
pace with, and often outstripped, his 
regular college classes. He was a most 
indefatigable student. During these 
years, while employed as a commercial 
traveller, his heavy case of books con- 
stituted his principal baggage. 

Throughout life Mr. Walker has 
been a model of industry. He rightly 
considered idleness as a vice, and in 
every period of life work was his espe- 
cial delight; for he fully realized that 
without persistent mental and physical 
labor — such as few will voluntarily un- 
dertake — he never could have reached 
the prosperous eminence of his later 
years. The department of knowledge 
in which he especially excelled, and 
ultimately became eminent in the high- 
est degree, was the higher mathematics, 
with the kindred branches, astronomy, 
chemistry, and the mechanical arts. To 
these studies, thus earnestly pursued 
and laboriously acquired, he is in- 
debted, no doubt, for the ability which 
in later life afforded him that clear 
perception and foresight, combined 
with continuous and unremitting labor, 



which have characterized his whole 
business career. 

When nineteen years of age, Mr. 
Walker's commercial-agency travels 
brought him to the little town of Paris, 
Illinois, where a profitable business 
venture opened up to him, in buying 
timber land and cutting cross-ties for 
the Terre Haute & St. Louis Railroad 
Company. Few boys of his age would 
have seen the business opening; and 
fewer still would have thought it pos- 
sible to overcome the obstacles in the 
way of the undertaking. A boy with- 
out business experience, a stranger in 
the community, without means, and 
dependent entirely upon the credit 
which he might be able to establish 
with the local banks for funds to prose- 
cute the work, he has probably never 
in his later business career undertaken 
any transaction involving so much 
nerve as well as self reliance, combined 
with consummate tact and sound judg- 
ment, as this "cross-tie" contract in the 
wild woods and pathless forests of 
Illinois. In a brief time he had his 
plans matured, funds secured, contracts 
closed, and boarding camps built; and 
the clear music of scores of axes was 
ringing through the woods. This en- 
terprise consumed eighteen months of 
time, and was a thoroughly creditable 
business and financial success in every 
point that could have been foreseen; 
but the failure of the company the same 
month the work was completed robbed 
him of all, save a small fraction, of 
the profits arising from the enterprise. 
With the few hundred dollars thus 
saved, he returned to his maternal 
home and books. The following winter 
he spent in teaching a district school, 
in which calling he was highly success- 
ful. Being himself a careful student, 
clear and direct in views and aims, he 
was able to present knowledge and the 
intricacies of study in so plain and 
simple a form as to make everything 
easily understood by his pupils. He 
rightly ranked the teacher's profession 
above all others, because of its power 
to make or mar the young and plastic 
character. In 1862, entertaining the 
idea of making teaching a profession, 
he made application to the Board of 
Wisconsin State University for the 
chair of the assistant professorship of 
mathematics, to which he was subse- 
quently elected. But the action of the 
board being delayed, he made arange- 
ments, before their favorable action 
was reported to him, to engage in the 
government survey. At this time, 
while at McGregor, Iowa, Mr. Walker 
met a citizen of the then almost un- 
known village called Minneapolis. 
True to the inborn instincts of the 
Minneapolis citizen, this casual ac- 
quaintance, Mr. Robinson, so enlarged 
upon the beauties of this embryo city 



that Mr. Walker decided at once to 
visit it, and accordingly took passage 
upon the first steamer for St. Paul, 
thence over the whole length of the 
only line of railway in the state of Min- 
nesota, a distance of nine miles from 
St. Paul to Minneapolis. One hour 
after his arrival he had engaged to go 
on a government survey, with the lead- 
ing surveyor of the state, Mr. George 
B. Wright, and began active prepara- 
tions for immediately taking the field. 
Mr. Walker's impressions of Minneap- 
olis were so favorable that he wrote 
back to his Ohio home, and to his af- 
fianced wife, "I have found the spot 
where we will make our home." 

The expedition, however, was des- 
tined to terminate disastrously. The 
Indian outbreak forced the party for 
safety into Fort Ripley. Mr. Walker 
returned to Minneapolis, devoting the 
summer to the survey of the first trial 
line of the St. Paul & Duluth railroad. 

The following season, T. B. Walker, 
on revisiting his parental home, was 
united in wedlock, Dec. 19, 1863, in 
Berea, Ohio, by Rev. J. Wheeler, D.D., 
his former college president and broth- 
er-in-law of his wife, to Harriet G., 
youngest daughter of Hon. Fletcher 
Hulet. 

In 1868, Mr. Walker began his first 
deal in pine lands. His knowledge of 
the vast tracks of unlocated pine for- 
ests of the state of Minnesota, gained 
in his vocation as surveyor of govern- 
ment lands, strongly impressed him 
with their immense value. The vast 
field of wealth and enterprise thus 
opened up by Mr. Walker was regard- 
ed at this period with little if any inter- 
est by leading lumbermen of Minneap- 
olis. His first pine land partners were 
Hon. L. Butler and Howard W. Mills; 
they putting their money against his 
labor, the lands thus found and located 
becoming the joint property of the 
three. From this date, during a series 
of years, the labor of Mr. Walker was 
severe and unremitting. Himself limit- 
ed in means, he availed himself of the 
capital of others to carry forward his 
gigantic lumber enterprises. All lands 
thus secured by him he located from 
actual personal examination, which 
kept him in the forests with his men 
many months at a time each year, for 
some ten consecutive years. In con- 
nection with his surveys and pine land 
matters, Mr. Walker is also extensively 
engaged in various sections of the 
Northwest in the manufacturing of 
lumber. Mr. Walker has been largely 
interested in the old Butler Mills and 
Walker lumber business, afterwards L. 
Butler & Co., and later Butler & Walk- 
er, and the mills built by those firms on 
the Falls of St. Anthony; and after- 
wards in the formation of the Camp & 
Walker business, and the purchase of 



the large Pacific mills, which were 
afterwards destroyed by fire and re- 
built into the finest and most important 
mills in the city or on the upper Mis- 
sissippi. Of late years he has been 
conspicuously interested in the large 
lumber mills at Crookston, Minnesota, 
and Grand Forks, North Dakota, both 
of which are most prominent features 
in the development of the Northwest. 
All these mills furnished employment 
for thousands of men for many years; 
while those located in the Red River 
Valley cheapened the price of lumber, 
and aided materially in the develop- 
ment of that section of the country. It 
may be remarked in this connection 
that Mr. Walker's lifelong business ca- 
reer, although extremely prosperous, 
has, nevertheless, on certain occasions, 
suffered severe disasters both by fire 
and flood. 

Mr. Walker's career has been re- 
markable for originality of method and 
strict business integrity. His word has 
always been as good as his bond. Ex- 
tremely liberal in the use of his wealth, 
his charities are unlimited; all classes 
have been more or less benefited by the 
subjects of his beneficence. At the 
time of the grasshopper visitation, by 
which the farmers of the western part 
of the state of Minnesota were reduced 
to a condition of poverty and semi- 
starvation pitiful to contemplate, Mr. 
Walker's efforts in behalf of suffering 
humanity were untiring. As soon as 
the grasshopper scourge had disap- 
peared, he organized a scheme for the 
raising of late crops that was of in- 
estimable value to settlers. He bought 
up all the turnip seed and likewise that 
of buckwheat to be had in the Twin 
Cities, and, at the same time, tele- 
graphed to Chicago for all that was for 
sale there. In this labor of love, Mr. 
Walker himself visited the afflicted 
sections; making up the seed into paper 
packages, and with hired teams con- 
ducted a systematic distribution over 
many townships. 

The season was so far advanced that 
only these late crops could be attempted. 
This timely aid saved hundreds of fam- 
ilies and numberless cattle from starva- 
tion. When the free distribution of 
these seeds became known in the af- 
flicted districts, many farmers walked 
fifteen or twenty miles to meet the 
teams, and thus avail themselves of 
Mr. Walker's beneficence. 

For many years he was one of the 
managers of the State Reform School. 
For fifteen years or more Mr. Walker 
worked systematically and persistent- 
ly to build up the old Athenaeum (a 
joint stock company) into a fine public 
library, and through the agency, assist- 
ance, and good will of various other 
citizens, he succeeded in the great task. 
Recognizing his achievement, the board 



insisted on his acting as its president, 
since its organization several years ago. 
For many years he worked amidst the 
most persistent and determined oppo- 
sition from various parties, and was 
seriously misunderstood and misappre- 
hended. The records of those years 
show numerous communications, per- 
sonal letters and criticisms, and his 
answers, regarding the part taken by 
him in the old Athenaeum in his en- 
deavors to change it from a rigid, close 
corporation into this public institution 
which is now the source of so much 
pride and satisfaction to the people. 
No man in the state has taken greater 
interest or a more active part in any 
public institution than he has in this, 
expending a large amount of time and 
considerable money in working the de- 
sired transformation. The noble and 
spacious building just completed con- 
tains not only a magnificent library, but 
also the Minnesota Academy of Na- 
tural Science, an institution with which 
Mr. Walker has been identified for 
years and which he has helped more 
materially than any one else; and the 
Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, with 
which he has been connected as presi- 
dent for several years. Taken alto- 
gether, the library-science-art building 
makes what is regarded as the finest 
public institution of the kind in the city 
or state. Mr. Walker's private library, 
consisting of a judicious selection of 
choice books, manifests a mind well 
stored with useful knowledge as well 
as a spirit of high culture and refined 
taste. Of late years Mr. Walker has 
given much attention to matters of art, 
and has made a collection of paintings, 
which exhibit not only a cultivated 
taste, but likewise an artistic eye for 
the beautiful in nature. His gallery 
walls are graced with rare productions 
of the first masters, both ancient and 
modern, including Jules Breton's 
"L'Appelle du Soir," one of the most 
famous pictures at the International 
Exhibition, and Madame Demont Bre- 
ton's "Her Man is on the Sea," pur- 
chased at the Salon. This exquisite 
collection of paintings — one of the fin- 
est private galleries in America or 
Europe — has recently been described in 
the Art Review, "The Collector." 

In 1874, Mr. Walker erected at the 
corner of Eighth street and Hennepin 
avenue, for his permanent residence, 
a palatial mansion, in which the family 
one year later took up its abode. He is 
the father of eight children, seven of 
whom live to cheer and bless the pa- 
rental home. The second son, Leon, 
a noble youth of nineteen years, just 
as he had joined his brother Gilbert in 
business, was suddenly stricken with 
fever, and death, in one brief week, 
bereft the family of one tenderly loved, 
and whose cherished memory will live 




l<4'|iro<lii<-(ioii t'r pliotourapli taken of llr. Walker in l!M>-J. 

L'Med tit illii.st rate artiele.s that appearetl in the follotviiiK piil>lieati< 

\e\v ^'<>rk Coinniereial. 
San Kraneiseo llulletin. 
>linneap«>liN 'rriltnne. 
>liiinesipolis 'Tinies. 



forever in each heart of the home 
circle. 

We close this sketch, not because the 
subject is exhausted, but because 
enough has been said to cornmand at- 
tention to a man who, by his acts, is 
entitled to high consideration for what 
he has done and what he is doing. He 
has opened wide paths to industry and 
enterprise, and extends a helping hand 
to all honest and well-disposed men 
who seek labor. 

In conclusion the following extract 
from a paper by T. B. Walker, read at 
the recent Sanitary Conference in Min- 
neapolis, is subjoined, as suggestive 
and highly instructive: 

"The rearing and training of children 
is justly regarded by the wiser portion 
of mankind as the highest and most 
important duty devolving upon the hu- 
man race. It underlies all other inter- 
ests, and upon its measure and direc- 
tion depend the welfare and happiness 
of the succeeding generation. 

"The subject is as old as the race; 
but its antiquity takes not the least 
from its supreme importance. On the 
contrary, its great age adds immeasur- 
ably to the difficulty of rightly deter- 
mining its bounds. 

"As each generation comes and goes, 
and leaves behind in the records of its 
life-word, and adds to the long list of 
previous discoveries, inventions, and 
compositions, it has produced a vast 
accumulation of wisdom and of folly, 
of useful and beautiful things so mixed 
with worthless or injurious ones that 
the difficulty in rightly directing 
children's thoughts and studies is in- 
creased with the vastness of the ac- 
cumulated records. If men investigat- 
ed the training of children as carefully 
and consistently as they do medicine, 
astronomy, geology, or almost any sub- 
ject other than this, there would be a 
step taken which would profit the 
world far more than in any other re- 
search to which they might direct their 
attention. The science or philosophy 
of education is comparatively an un- 
cultivated field. The art of teaching is 
quite extensively discussed. Eloquent 
appeals are made for men to educate; 
the supreme necessity of widespread, 
general education is universally recog- 
nized; but the astonishing indifference 
and criminal carelessness concerning 
the quality, quantity, and method 
of our so-called education quite 
neutralizes the great merit of recog- 
nizing the value of true and appropriate 
training. Or, in other words, we feel 
justified in saying that the people gen- 
erally have retrograoed more by their 
general forgetfulness or misapprehen- 
sion of the true object of education, 
than they have gained by their allegi- 
ance to the principle of the general 
necessity for a diffusion of knowledge 



among all classes. Education implies, 
according to all authorities, the de- 
velopment and cultivation of all the 
physical, intellectual, and moral facul- 
ties; and it should add, and many do 
add, that of religion. 

"The primary necessity of the use- 
ful citizen and successful man is 
strong, vigorous, robust health. There 
is no difference of opinion on this 
point among thoughtful men. The 
sickly man is not an efficient producer, 
agent, or actor of any kind. He is a 
cripple and a burden upon society in 
proportion to his lack of vigor and 
energy. It is not important to state 
whether the person can answer a hun- 
dred or ten thousand questions in geog- 
raphy, grammer, botany, natural his- 
tory, or the Latin language; but in the 
time of either peace or war his value to 
the state is dependent upon the extent of 
his physical and mental force, directed 
by a knowledge of facts and principles 
w^hich our schools almost wholly ig- 
nore. To obtain an elementary educa- 
tion in our city schools requires twelve 
years of close, laborious study. The 
whole force and machinery of the 
schools is directed toward the most ef- 
fective devices and methods for cram- 
ming and crowding a multitude of 
things into the memory of the children. 
Each scholar is compelled to pursue 
from seven to ten studies. From two 
and one-half to three and three-fourths 
hours are consumed each day in recita- 
tions. They are confined in the school 
room four and one-half hours per day. 
Taking out of this the time consumed 
in the recitations, it leaves for the 
time to devote to study in the school 
room from one to two hours; or, run- 
ning a general average, it takes over 
three hours per day to get through the 
recitations, and they have, say, one 
and one-half hours to devote to study. 
These recitations are from fifteen to 
thirty minutes in length, so that they 
are turning rapidly from one subject to 
another during the whole day. 

"Such long-continued attention under 
most severe and rigid rules, which 
compel close attention, becomes irk- 
-some, overtaxes their nerve power, and 
injures them. Now. when we further 
consider that so much time is consumed 
in the recitations, and there are so 
many of them that it leaves but a little 
over ten minutes per day to devote to 
studying each lesson, we readily see 
that this is insufficient time for learn- 
ing them; for we must bear in mind 
that this is the high-i)rcssure system, 
and each scholar is impelled by all the 
force of expedients as merciless as 
cold steel to keep his place. This re- 
quires more time to study out of school 
hours than are allowed within; so that 
it is probably safe to say that each 
scholar is taxed with giving seven 

5 



hours' close attention to books each 
day. Those who have the best memo- 
ries and readiest tongues are accounted 
the ablest scholars. And they can com- 
mit a greater variety of facts, narnes, 
and dates to memory in a given time 
than those who have a slower memory, 
but very likely a better mind. Now 
when the high pressure is applied to 
all of them, and the quick memories are 
more than buried, the others are taxed 
jjeyond the limit of safety; add to this 
the fact of very defective heating and 
ventilation, as well as bad lighting to 
hurt the eyesight, and it makes a very 
discouraging view to people having 
children to educate, or who have any 
care for the welfare of society. 

"The efifect of this educational rnachin- 
ery upon the children, we claim, is, that 
it reduces to a considerable extent the 
physical system, not necessarily to pro- 
duce disease or great apparent weak- 
ness, though it very often does this 
or more. It reduces their available 
force and energy, and lessens their 
chance of success and usefulness. It 
also reduces their natural independence 
and originality, and wears away any 
marked aptitude or genius which they 
might possess. 

"These results are caused by the 
length of time required each day for 
so many years of study; by the great 
number of subjects taught; by the uni- 
versal selection of subjects by the appli- 
tion of one great rigid system to all 
sorts, kinds, and qualities of dispo- 
sitions; by enclosing them in a machine 
that allows no independent action, and 
regards each scholar as a portion of 
the wheel work that must turn in its 
groove regularly and without variation; 
by the bad heating, ventilating, and 
lighting of schoolhouses. 

"Children are but young, unmatured 
men and women. The limit of their 
capacity to bear strain of this kind 
without injury is easily reached. Busi- 
ness men, whose minds are certainly 
able to bear more than those of chil- 
dren, are constantly admonished of the 
danger of mental destruction, and can 
bear safely but little, if any, more 
hours' close thinking than is required 
by our public-school management of 
the children. One of the unpromising 
features of the case is that those who 
are intrusted with the management of 
the schools deny the existence of any 
hardships or methods which are in- 
jurious. But the injury will result just 
the same as though they did not deny 
it, and their inability to apprehend it 
only insures its more certain effects 
and greater permanence. 

"Professor Huxley in the Popular 
Science Monthly says: 'The educa- 
tional abomination of desolation of the 
present day is the stimulation of young 
people to work at high pressure by 



incessant competitive exammations. 
Some wise man (who was probably not 
an early riser) has said of early risers in 
general that they are conceited all the 
forenoon and stupid all the afternoon. 
Now, whether this is true of early risers, 
in the common acceptance of the terrn, 
or not, I will not pretend to say; but it is 
too often true of the unhappy children 
who are forced to rise too early in their 
classes. They are conceited all the 
forenoon of life and stupid all the after- 
noon. The vigor and freshness, which 
should have been stored up for the pur- 
poses of the hard struggle for existence 
in practical life, have been washed out 
of them by precocious mental debauch- 
ery, by book-giuttony and lesson-bib- 
bing. Their faculties are worn out by 
the strain upon their callow brains, 
and they are demoralized by worthless, 
childish triumphs before the real work 
of life begins. I have no compassion 
for sloth, but the youth has more need 
for intellectual rest than age; and the 
cheerfulness, the tenacity of purpose 
and the power of work which make 
many a successful man what he is, must 
often be placed to the credit, not to his 
hours of industry, but to that of his 
hours of idleness in boyhood.' Those 
who are not satisfied that our school 
system is seriously and criminally de- 
fective in the points condemned in 
this paper, as well as some others not 
here considered, owe it to those whose 
lives are affected by it to at least inves- 
tigate it." — Biographical History of the 
Northwest. 



COMMON SENSE TARIFF 
PRINCIPLES. 

T. B. Walker's tariff pamphlet, Mdiich 
the Tribune published in full some days 
ago, is quite generally commented on 
by the press. The comments of the Re- 
publican press are as a rule very favor- 
able although some of the papers, like 
the New York Tribune and the St. Paul 
Pioneer Press, assume a patronizing 
tone, and say in effect: "Mr. Walker 
has made a very good tariff argument, 
but of course we could make a better 
one." The fact is, however, that no 
Republican paper or speaker has as yet 
made a more convincing argument. No 
one before has so completely demon- 
strated that prosperity in this country 
has always been coincident with pro- 
tection to American industry, and that 
panic and depression have been coinci- 
dent with low tariff. 

The Democratic papers treat Mr. 
Walker's pamphlets rather gingerly. 
The St. Paul Globe characterized it as 
a weak argument and promised to reply 
to it in detail — but up to the present 
writing it has not ventured to tackle 
the job. It evidentlv finds it too hard 
a nut to crack.— Tribune, Dec. 24, 1895. 



SILVER ANNIVERSARY EDITION, 



THE MINNEAPOLIS JOURNAL. 



MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.. NOV. 29, 1903. 



T. B. WALKER— CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY. 



Student of Politics and History, and Patron of the Arts and Sciences 
—Fortune Laid in Early and Judicious Investments in Minnesota 
Pine Lands — His Operations Now Elxtend to the Coast, Where 
He is the Largest Individual Holder of Timber Tracts — A City 
and State Builder — How He Came to Minneapolis. 



When he was but 19, Thomas B. 
Walker, of Minneapolis became a 
traveling salesman for a grindstone 
manufacturer, of Berea, Ohio. He came 
west with a consignment of grind- 
stones, and in St. Paul found a young 
dock laborer who helped him sort and 
label them. The young laborer of that 
early day is now president of the 
Great Northern railroad, and his name 
is a household word almost in the 
length and breadth of the land. 

Minnesota was in need of young 
men of the right sort, and Mr. Walker 
soon recognized the fact that this state 
promised larger things than did the 
grindstones of the buckeye state. He 
spent a year with a government sur- 
veying party in the Minnesota pine 
woods. At the end of that time he had 
marked out a course of business in- 
vestments. He began putting his 
means as he could spare into pine tim- 
ber and thus laid the foundation for 
his great fortune. 

To-day no man owns so much Min- 
nesota pine timber as Mr. Walker. His 
faith in white pine stumpage has never 
faltered. His plans for this line of 
investment were made at a time when 
his capital was almost an unknown 
quantity, but he made his resources 
count. Few men knew the wealth of 
Minnesota pine in that early time, but 
Mr. Walker, with the keen foresight 
and rare judgment that have uniformly 
characterized his business career, saw 
the possibilities of the country and its 
resources, and was quick to seize upon 
the opportunity. The promise of 
wealth from these resources, as the 
country should develop and be peopled, 
was never vague or uncertain to his 
mental vision. 

NATIVE OF THE BUCKEYE STATE. 

Mr. Walker was born at Xenia, in 
Ohio, in 1840. His father was one of 
the "forty-niners" whose graves mark 
the prairie trail toward the California 



gold fields. Thomas and three other 
children were left with the widowed 
mother in reduced circumstances. He 
managed, however, to secure a good 
education for that day by attending one 
term each year at Baldwin university 
at Berea, Ohio, and by working the 
rest of the year to pay his expenses. 
He developed a remarkable proficiency 
in mathematics, a talent that came near 
putting him for life into the ranks of 
school teachers. 

His first partners in the pine land 
business were L. Butler and Howard 
B. Mills, the firm being Butler, Mills 
& Walker. Later he went into partner- 
ship with Major Camp, as Camp & 
Walker. This company purchased a 
Minneapolis sawmill and operated it 
for some years. It also built mills at 
Crookston, Grand Forks and other 
points. In more recent years Mr. 
Walker has built a mill at Akeley, 
Minn. 

But with all this lumber manufac- 
ture — a business large enough in itself 
to rate Mr. Walker high as a lumber- 
man — Mr. Walker was not primarily 
a lumber manufacturer. His first pur- 
pose was the buying of pine timber, 
and his best thought and the best of 
his fortune was turned that way. He 
bought with other buyers and he 
bought for himself, not in one section 
alone, but wherever his good cruisers 
and his good judgment pointed out 
good bargains. 

MODEL LUMBER TOWN. 

The town of Akeley, started by the 
mill, has 1,400 or more inhabitants 
and is unique in some respects among 
the villages of the state. The mill 
owners were also owners of all the 
land in that vicinity for miles around, 
and they stipulated in the deed of every 
piece of land sold that it should at no 
time be used as a site for a dispensary 
of intoxicating liquors. In conse- 
quence they have a town where, with- 



out laws to that effect not a drop of 
liquor is sold. The result is that no 
town or city organization has been 
necessary, and there is not a more 
orderly or contented community to be 
found in the state. 

The mill of the Red River Lumber 
Company is thoroughly modern. It is 
equipped with two double cutting 
bands, a band resaw and the necessary 
accompanying machinery. The plan- 
ing mill is one of the best, if not the 
best of its size in the northwest. 

Since the mall was first started it 
has been running day and night, win- 
ter and summer. A complete electric 
light plant furnishes light for the mill 
and town. 

THE MILL EQUIPMENT. 

For winter sawing the company built 
a hot water pond where the frost is 
taken out of the logs before they go 
into the mill. The pond is about 125 
feet wide and 500 feet long, and the 
water is heated by exhaust steam from 
the engine-room. After operating with 
the hot water pond for a time, the com- 
pany found that the part of the log 
that was out of the water retained the 
snow and frost, and made hard saw- 
ing. To do away with this difficulty 
they decided to roof over a part of the 
pond, and they now have a shed 100 
feet wide and 300 feet long, with a 
capacity for about 200,000 feet of logs 
from which the frost disappears before 
they go to the mill. 

The officers of the company are: 
T. B. Walker, president; Gilbert M. 
Walker, vice president; Fletcher L. 
Walker, treasurer and manager; and 
Charles B. March, secretary and man- 
ager of the sales department. 

The company ranks with the lead- 
ing concerns of its kind in the white 
pine country and turns out a quality 
of lumber second to none. 

HOLDINGS IN THE WEST. 

Only last winter Mr. Walker re- 
turned from an extended trip thru the 
timber regions of the Pacific slope, and 
his observations, summarized at the 
time by the Mississippi Valley Lumber- 
man, are worthy of reproduction in 
this connection. Next in extent to the 
holdings of the Weyerhaeuser syndi- 
cate and the Central Pacific railroad 
on the coast comes the timber owned 
by Mr. Walker. The Lumberman said: 

The Weyerhaeuser timber is located 
in Washington and Idaho and consists 
in the larger part of fir in the first 
mentioned state and a large area of 
white pine in Idaho. While the hold- 
ings of this latter company are much 
larger in the aggregate than those held 
by Mr. Walker, yet no one individual 
in this syndicate owns as large an 
amount as that belonging to him. By 
general consent of those who are fa- 



miliar with matters on the coast and 
as asserted by the San Francisco and 
local papers, Mr. Walker is credited 
with the largest holdings of any one 
person or firm on the coast. The 
timber he owns consists of sugar and 
white pine, with a large intermixture 
of fir and spruce, and is located on the 
upper tables of northeastern California 
in Siskiyou, Shasta, Modoc, Lassen and 
Plumas counties. 

PINE REGIONS OF CALIFORNIA. 

Mr. Walker has been engaged per- 
sonally and thru his assistants for the 
past ten or twelve years inspecting and 
examining the timber lands of the coast, 
and finally about five years ago began 
the purchase of timber in the pine re- 
gions of California. He has spent a 
considerable portion of his time dur- 
ing the last mentioned years personal- 
ly superintending, inspecting and man- 
aging his pine land purchases. His 
recent trip was for the purpose of 
closing up his various land deals and 
of surveying and estimating his timber 
holdings. 

Mr. Walker in securing his large 
holdings has selected the table lands 
rather than the mountain regions, not 
only on account of the large quantity 
of high grade timber to be found there, 
but because on the level table lands 
logging can be done very cheaply and 
railways built without much difficulty, 
and at comparatively small cost, for 
bringing the logs to the mill and carry- 
ing the lumber away to the trunk line. 
The demand for this lumber is rapidly 
increasing and threatens to far outrun 
the supply. The only perplexing prob- 
lem at present is the disposal of the 
common grades. But as the clear lum- 
ber, shop, door and box stock consti- 
tute a large part of the output, and the 
demand is always in excess of the sup- 
ply, the remaining small fraction will 
generally find a market in the Sacra- 
mento valley. 

SOLID TRACTS. 

Mr. Walker, having completed his 
purchase of timber in almost solid 
tracts of all that is tributary to Pit 
river and also the large district in Big 
Meadow district, will begin the devel- 
opment of a railway scheme and per- 
haps the location of sawmill plants with 
a view of converting the timber into 
lumber on a large scale, not so much 
under his own management as that of 
his sons, who are all practical lumber- 
men and who have most successfully 
managed and operated his mills and 
logging operations in Minnesota for 
many years. 

The intention is to protect the tim- 
ber he has recently acquired, by im- 
mediate measures, so as to keep the 
fires from running thru and damaging 
the trees. In the future, while the tim- 



ber operations are going on, it is pro- 
posed to cut the larger timber, leaving 
the small and medium-sized trees for 
the reproduction of timber for future 
use, which would probably result in a 
larger amount on the acre for the sec- 
ond cutting than that of the first. In 
the meantime, when the large trees 
are cut, the brush will be taken care 
of so as to prevent the destruction of 
the small trees. From this timber left 
standing the leaves and brush will be 
cleared out so there will be little dam- 
age from tires that periodically run thru 
the forest. The first cutting from 
these large tracts will take some- 
where from si.xty to a hundred years, 
according to how rapidly the timber is 
required. 

CONTINUOUS TIMBER SUPPLY. 

When the land is once cut over the 
the next growth will be as large in 
amount, probably, as the first cutting. 
Altho the trees themselves will not 
be as large, yet they will be much 
larger than any of the timber that 
grows in other white pine regions. 
This policy will mean practically a 
continuous timber supply from that 
section. The lands are not required 
for agricultural purposes and are thus 
particularly adapted to be held for re- 
forestation. This most desirable leg- 
acy to posterity is only possible, how- 
ever, provided the people in the coun- 
ties in which the timber is located will 
be reasonable and fair in their tax col- 
lections, and not compel the immediate 
removal of the timber, as has been 
done in Minnesota thru the action of 
local authorities, the state legislature 
and the supreme court. 

By proper methods of handling, these 
great forests of California will furnish 
a continuous lumber business for the 
next 200 or more years. This will not 
only be of local value in the territory 
where the timber is located, and to the 
state of California as a whole, but 
will contribute towards a supply of 
lumber for the country generally, of 
which it will be greatly in need. At 
the same time the timber lands can and 
will be continuously used for pasturage 
purposes by the people living in the 
valleys and on the flat plateaus located 
in the timber regions. They are now 
and will in the future be permitted to 
graze their stock on these lands with- 
out expense. The grazing will be as 
good after the first or second cutting 
as before, as a variety of grasses that 
will perpetuate themselves will be sown 
thru the timber and permitted to spread 
for the benefit of these stockmen. 

ON A LARGE SCALE. 

Proper railway communication thru 
this region is greatly needed, not only 
to handle the timber, but for the local 
freight and passenger trafiic thruout 



northeast California. The ease with 
which timber can be handled on these 
tracts, the remarkable demand for the 
lumber in the market, makes Mr. Walk- 
er's venture a prospectively prosperous 
enterprise, particularly as he is able 
to handle it on a large scale. The con- 
ditions in California are so different 
from those in other white pine timber 
regions that handling on a large scale 
is the only successful method by which 
it can be lumbered. The streams are 
not generally drivable on account of 
numerous rapids and falls. The butt 
logs of the sugar and white pine will 
sink so that driving is impracticable 
for these two reasons. In lumbering 
on a large scale logging railways and 
big wheel carts move the logs readily 
and economically direct to the mills. 
When river driving is attempted the 
logs that sink are placed on a dry 
haulway or suported by means of floats 
used for that purpose. The lumber can 
always be cut to practically the same 
advantage or even better than the 
method used in other timber regions. 
The very large expense of construct- 
ing railways, together with the selling 
of the product in remote markets 
necessitates large operations in order 
to make a success. 

HIS INTEREST IN FORESTRY. 

Mr. Walker takes a keen interest in 
forestry, and in meetings of national 
experts his judgment and opinions are 
sought and highly prized. When the 
American Forestry Association met in 
Minneapolis, in August, he took an ac- 
tive part in the proceedings and was 
regarcfed as one of the best authorities 
at the convention. He led an interest- 
ing discussion upon methods of pre- 
venting forest fires, saying in part: 

A year last spring I put into a large 
tract of timber in California a crew 
of about ten men, and that crew was 
divided into couples who traced the 
lines of the different sections so that 
they could know where fhey were, and 
then, being divided, the land running 
out into forty-acre tracts, two men were 
put onto each forty with shovels; each 
man with a shovel, and one with an ax, 
and one with a cross-cut saw. They were 
required to go to each tree; at first only 
the larger ones, but finally it was 
changed into taking away everything 
that would be liable to damage any 
sized tree, where there were burnt 
stumps, or trees had fallen beside 
others, and were dry, so that when 
forest fires came in it would burn hard 
along the side of one of the large trees 
and be liable to burn a spot thru the 
bark. The bark of those trees is very 
dense and heavy, and resists burning. 
It only chars in. Now, when the fire 
is sufficient along the side of a tree 
by means of the brush, needles, cones 



and limbs that have fallen, to burn a 
hole thru the bark, it begins the de- 
struction of the large tree. Then, hav- 
ing got a start, and the pitch running 
out, some needles will fall into that; 
so that, if that is continued for tvi^o 
or three years, and needles enough 
come to continue the burning, when the 
fires run again it will increase the 
size of this burnt spot. Continuing 
that way year after year (some of 
them, I think, for half a century, and 
maybe more before there is a hollow 
burned into the tree), finally it goes 
thru and runs up the whole inside of 
it, so you can walk inside of hundreds 
of these trees in a wilderness of that 
kind. 

At any point from the start to the 
time that the tree is down, this process 
of protection can save them, and if 
there is enough wood left so that the 
wind will not blow it over, it will begin 
to gather up again and an increased 
growth keep it in the future. 

After they have cleared away the 
needles and leaves from each of the 
trees, and around all of them, so that 
the fire will not run against it, and also 
cleared away the limbs and brush from 
the trees, then, where there is a hol- 
low or burnt spot or hollow burned 
in the tree, they take these shovels 
and fill it in with dirt, so that when 
the fire comes again, instead of hav- 
ing pitchy burned wood, it has this dirt 
or earth as a cover, and that will re- 
main there and protect it for a great 
many years. In the course of time, if 
other trees or limbs fall by the side of 
it, so as to furnish a path for a flame 
that will reach up to the burned side 
or inside of the hollow, it might con- 
tinue; but those will be taken away in 
the future. It will not be necessary to 
go over the same land in the same 
manner for a great many years. At 
the same time, each year, after one or 
two years, at least, foresters will not 
be able to find anything of this kind, 
and perhaps it will continue thru the 
future years. 

NO GENERAL CONFLAGRATIONS. 

There are no general conflagrations 
that run thru the California forest. 
Sometimes in the course of years it will 
be found that one tree has been burned 
down and fallen beside some others, 
and they have tumbled around until 
there is quite a burned patch in the 
timber; but this process of protecting 
timber will practically eliminate that. I 
think that the timber lands in that 
state, in Oregon, and I think in Wash- 
ington, as well as Idaho, can all be 
protected, where the trees are large 
and sufficiently so to make it an object. 

Another thing that is in favor of 
California to a considerable extent is 
the fact that the brush is evergreen. 
Each leaf has a little bit of water, like 



the little cactus. It furnishes water 
enough to carry it thru the dry season, 
there being no rains there from the 
spring until the fall. This is the only 
kind that will grow (evergreens), and 
there is none of the deciduous trees 
there, or grass. Consequently it is 
an advantage in that respect. The 
fires come from the needles and the 
cones. 

The squirrels are making a good deal 
of trouble by bringing the cones onto 
a burnt spot to get the little nuts out 
of them, and sometimes they will make 
half a bushel right in one spot, so if 
that is on a burned place, when the 
fire comes again, it will burn the tree 
still more. 

NEW PROCESS OF FORESTRY. 

Now, this process of forestry is 
new, so far as I know. I have not 
heard of anyone else practicing it, al- 
tho last year the Diamond Match Com- 
pany, who have a considerably extend- 
ed pine land area, have begun the same 
practice, as I understand. But I think 
when it becomes understood all the 
California pine land owners will prac- 
tice the same process of protecting 
their land, because I think it will not 
only save the timber, but will be pro- 
fitable, as it will save more than the 
cost in value of the process of pro- 
tecting it. 

I don't know exactly what the cost 
will be; but it will not be very great. 
The trees are generally pretty large, 
and altho there are a good many small 
ones among them a couple of men will 
go over a forty-acre tract in a very 
moderate length of time. It may cost 
15 to 25 cents an acre to go over the 
land. Where you have one large tree 
that will cut 10,000 or 20,000 feet, and 
sometimes 30,000 or 40,000 feet of pine 
timber, that is very valuable — good 
enough to transport to any part of the 
world and make good money on it. 
It is profitable to save one tree oc- 
casionally, and in this process a great 
many would be saved, particularly be- 
fore the time the timber is gone. 

Afterwards, in the neighborhood of 
the cutting, these trees may be taken 
out when they have burned down and 
fallen, but up to that time every tree 
that is saved in this way is paid for 
in its use and value. Each tree has a 
great deal of value. It is peculiar to 
the forest lands of that country. It 
is very dififerent from Minnesota, be- 
cause here the trees are smaller and 
contain a great deal less timber on the 
acre. There is only about 15 or 20 
per cent as much timber on the acre 
here as there is on the timber lands 
of California, so you cannot protect 
your timber here as cheaply as you 
can there. You will have a good deal 
more timber protected, and each tree 
is worth a great deal more because 



there is so much larger proportion of 
clear timber. The clear timber is a 
large fractional part of the whole cut. 
Particularily if the whole cut is 
handled as it should be; that is, if 
the large trees are cut, as I think any 
sane lumberman will do after he be- 
comes acquainted. He will cut out 
only the large trees. That will take 
out, perhaps, a third or a quarter of 
the trees that would be large enough 
to cut. When each tree is cut follow 
it up and take out everj'thing, then 
clear away the tops, put them out 
where they will not burn any other 
trees, either large or small, which will 
be something of a bill of expense, 
and leave the remainder of the trees 
to grow. Then in the course of thirty 
or forty years a three-foot tree will be 
a great deal larger. The slow growth 
they speak of here is much less than 
they anticipate, I know, in California. 
They calculate a small tree will be a 
respectable sized one in thirty or forty 
years. 

A WORKER FOR MINNE.\POLIS. 

Mr. Walker's lumber and timber 
business in no way covers the range 
of his business activities. He has been 
pre-eminently a promoter of Minne- 
apolis industries. He organized the 
Minneapolis Business Men's Union 
for the encouragement of manufactur- 
ing enterprises and himself invested 
extensively both his money and his 
personal attention in such business 
ventures. A catalogue of the business 
enterprises in which he is interested 
would be too bulky for insertion in 
this sketch. 

Nor are his interests in these branch 
enterprises monetary only. Mr. Walk- 
er has that ability common to great 
commanders, of carrying a mass of 
details mentally pigeonholed and ready 
for accurate application on demand. 
He is actual manager-in-chief of all 
the activities in which he is largely 
interested. 

STUDENT OF POLITICS, HISTORY AND ART. 

Aside from these varied activities, 
Mr. Walker has found time to make 
himself a thoro student of politics and 
history, as well as a connoisseur in art. 
Connected with his residence on Hen- 
nepin avenue he has a private art gal- 
lery containing a collection of paint- 
ings unequaled by that of any private 
art gallery in the United States. Joe 
JefTerson has pronounced it superior in 
quality to any private collection in this 
country or in Europe. A few collec- 
tions surpass it in size and money 
value, but none contain paintings so 
uniformly great. His home also con- 
tains many more masterpieces, while 
the public art gallery of this city is 



largely made up of paintings loaned 
by him. 

BROAD-GAUGED OTIZEN. 

Mr. Walker is a thoro student of 
Napoleonic history, and his art collec- 
tion contains some of the world's most 
famous paintings of Napoleon and his 
time. The Society of Fine Arts, the 
Minneapolis Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, the Public Library Associa- 
tion and the Methodist Episcopal 
Church of this city are among the large 
beneficiaries of Mr. Walker's wealth 
and work. He is a city builder in the 
broadest sense, and a citizen such as 
any state might wish to own. 

When young Thomas Walker sold 
grindstones for Mr. Hulet, the Berea 
manufacturer, he also fell in love with 
his employer's daughter. Miss Harriet 
In 1863 he went back to Ohio to marry 
her, and returned, bringing his bride 
with him. Mrs. Walker is a leader 
among women in as great a measure as 
Mr. Walker is among men. Their 
home has been blessed with the com- 
ing of five sons and two daughters, 
all now grown. All have been given 
thoro educational advantages. As the 
sons have come to manhood they have 
been put into command of industries 
in which they have also taken a hard 
and thoro rudimentary education. In 
this family of able children may be 
found some explanation of the life- 
long plans and persistent patience with 
which Mr. Walker has pushed his 
varied enterprises. 

Mr. Walker has given a large amount 
of time and hard study to mathemati- 
cal and other scientific studies during 
not only his early life, but continually 
thru the years while conducting his 
great business enterprises, which alone 
would tax the abilities of the ablest 
men to successfully handle. 

He has been a thoro student of all 
the questions of social, industrial and 
political afifairs. He has written quite 
extensively on all these public questions 
in the way of numerous newspaper and 
pamphlet articles. Among these, his 
"Low Tariff and Hard Times," pub- 
lished during the first McKinley cam- 
paign, was printed in full in the Jour- 
nal and Tribune, and two extra edi- 
tions of 50,000 copies each republished 
by the National Republican Club. The 
diagrams, tables and proofs of the value 
of protective tariff were used in the 
campaign by hundreds of speakers 
thruout the northern states. 

It was only thru the tardy action 
of the board of regents of the Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin that he did not make 
that institution his home and his per- 
manent life work the teaching of the 
various branches of higher mathemat- 
ics. He has always regarded his fa- 
miliarity with the exact mathematical 
principles and methods as the key to 



the success which has so largely at- 
tended his many undertakings and 
varied attainments. 

His extraordinary success as an art 
collector is generally conceded by 
those most competent to judge, both 
in this country and in Europe. He has 
never been known to buy a poor pic- 
ture, and has perhaps the only collec- 
tion, public or private, to be found any- 
where that does not include a poor or 
mediocre picture. In nearly every gal- 
lery, public or private, a large propor- 
tion of the paintings found on the walls 
are unworthy a place in a high class 
collection, while in Mr. Walker's gal- 
lery not a picture can be found among 
the two or three hundred finest ex- 
amples that is not of the highest grade. 

He has been a most powerful factor 
in the development of the best inter- 
ests of the city and state, and has 
come to be generally regarded as one 
of the most capable, reliable and use- 
ful among the citizens of Minneapohs, 
of the state of the Northwest.— 

MAY DAY PROBLEM OF THE 
RICH. 

As millionaires go, Mr. Thomas Bar- 
low Walker, of Minneapolis, is above 
the average in public spirit and patrio- 
tism. Indeed, he is about the best 
sample the sawdust city has produced. 
Mr. Walker has done many creditable 
things in his life time, and has ad- 
vanced many creditable views on public 
affairs. 

Indeed, he has always been long on 
views, and as he grows older and has 
more leisure to follow his mental in- 
clinations, his fondness for giving 
public utterance to his private opinion 
grows. 

The world is always glad to hear 
from Mr. Walker. He is a man of 
much and varied experience. He 
picked Ohio as his birth state, and with 
a heritage of intellectual ambition on 
his mother's side and of business enter- 
prise on his father's, he is a well- 
balanced man of affairs. 

Mr. Walker's first business venture, 
most appropriately, was dealing in 
grindstones. With sharpened wits he 
has found no difficulty in accumulating 
a few odd millions of dollars, but they 
have brought some troubles with them 
and one has come from the inquisitive- 
ness of the tax-gatherer. 

The Minneapolis board of equaliza- 
tion took a notion that his assessment 
on credits should be about $500,000. It 
is not probable that it was more than 
a notion, just to hear what Mr. Walker 
would think about it. His thoughts 
were, of course, on tap and he read 
them to the board from manuscript. 

Among numerous other things, he 
ventured this: 

This general prejudice against the 



so-called capitalist, unjustly spread 
against a most useful class of citizens 
leading the most strenuous lives in 
building up and maintaining the public 
interest, is being promulgated by a far 
lower and less respectable form of 
citizenship than that of the wealthy 
class. 

As Mr. Walker did not diagram his 
remarks each reader will have to in- 
terpret them according to his own 
fancy. If he meant that the capitalist, 
because of his philanthropic strenu- 
osity in getting richer, is entitled to 
special consideration from the tax- 
gatherer, he will find few outside his 
own class to agree with him. 

Also his intimation that the preju- 
dice against these hard working mil- 
lionaire athletes, who have relieved 
Atlas of his job, is born of "a lower 
and less respectable form" of the hu- 
man kind, will not set easily on the 
public digestion. The prejudice against 
wealth has its basis in the acts of 
wealth, and one of those acts which is 
most pronounced is the marked indis- 
position of the millionaire to admit 
that May 1 has ever found him with 
more than his car fare in his purse. 
The most strenuous job that wealth 
annually faces, but the one it never 
shirks, is to get into the poor man's 
class on May day. — News-Tribune, Du- 
luth, Minn., Aug. 11, 1906. 



Mr. T. B. Walker has published a 
very handsome brochure on the sub- 
ject of "Low Tariffs and Hard Times," 
and amassed about all the arguments, 
and certainly the most plausable argu- 
ments, that can be advanced in favor 
of high protective tariffs. Mr. Walk- 
er is undoubtedly the ablest represent- 
ative of that school of economic thot 
in the Northwest. He has made a 
study of the subject for years and is 
thoroughly convinced of the correct- 
ness of the views which he has so ably 
presented in his pamphlet. But like 
all high-tariffites, he denies the postu- 
late of all the great economists from 
Adam Smith and David Hume down to 
the present day, that the taxation of ma- 
terials and manufacturing production 
is a burden to labor and an obstruc- 
tion to industrial prosperity. He ar- 
rays statistics to prove what nobody 
denies, that concerning the great su- 
periority of the home market over the 
foreign trade of this country. Here- 
after The Times will consider with 
care some of Mr. Walker's chief argu- 
ments and see what there is really in 
them. His pamphlet is well worthy of 
such attention, as probably containing 
the strongest arguments in favor of 
protection for the sake of protection, 
from one of the most earnest and well 
informed representatives of the pro- 
tectionist school. — Minneapolis Times, 
December 14, 1895. 



BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY WITH PORTRAITS 
PROMINENT MEN OF THE GREAT WEST. 

By Manhattan Publishing Co., 1894. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



Thomas Barlow Walker, capitalist 
and philanthropist, of Minneapolis, 
Minnesota, is a man of force, a har- 
monious combination of business activ- 
ity, intellectual ablity and aesthetic ap- 
preciation. He represents the fast de- 
clining type of men who were pioneers, 
and the new order which promotes the 
beautiful, fosters the fine arts, and 
encourages the expansion of culture as 
the best good for all. 

His philanthropy has caused him to 
throw open his magnificent private art 
gallery to the public, and has made 
him feel that benches on his lawn would 
be agreeable to the many whose des- 
tiny is to walk rather than be conveyed 
through life. He is progressive and 
alwaj's ready to meet changed condi- 
tions, comprehending that the situa- 
tion today will not be the same to- 
morrow. From his earliest boyhood he 
has always been helping others, and 
it seems marvelous how he managed 
in the years when he had only his own 
labor to depend upon, to do so much 
for his mother and sisters, and in later 
life for all with whom he had dealings. 
While never an indiscriminate or emo- 
tional giver, his life has been a record 
of continual and thoughtful helpful- 
ness. The sum of his benefactions to 
public and private causes will never be 
known, least of all to himself, but it 
has been limited only by his means and 
sometimes has overstepped even that 
mark. To the church, to the cause of 
education, to public libraries, to the 
education of individuals, his wealth, 
and, the hardest of all for a busy man 
to give, his own time and strength, 
have been freely and generously be- 
stowed. 

In his personal habits of dress and 
living, Mr. Walker is plain in the ex- 
treme, not as an affectation, but be- 
cause this style of living and dressing 
appeals the most strongly to his bet- 
ter judgment. But almost in contradic- 
tion to this, he has a great love for 
the beautiful in nature, in art, in archi- 
tecture, and is satisfied with nothing 
but the best. When he erects a build- 
ing it is right when it is finished, 
architecturally, mechanically, and fitted 
to its use, whether it is for a church, 
an art gallery or a business house, 
and when he builds a structure it al- 
ways remains. 

One of Mr. Walker's strong charac- 
teristics has always been his enjoy- 



ment of endless work, coupled with 
the greatest ability to accomplish much 
in a short space of time. He takes his 
recreations by changing from one kind 
of work to another, and it is impossi- 
ble for him to be mildly interested in 
anything; he enters into a subject 
thoroughly or not at all. His long 
business hours are supplemented by as 
long ones in his library in study or 
writing, or in his gallery of pictures, 
and no moment of his life runs to 
waste. He is social in his nature, but 
has no taste for general society or 
club life. Much of his time in earlier 
years was spent among his children, 
whose education he personally superin- 
tended. He is a thoroughly well in- 
formed man and an entertaining speak- 
er. He has written and spoken ex- 
tensively on social and political topics, 
is a recognized authority on art mat- 
ters, a staunch Christian gentleman, al- 
ways ready to testify to his faith, and 
ever loyal to his country, his family, 
his friends, his political party and his 
church. 

Thomas Barlow Walker was born 
February 1, 1840, in Xenia, Greene 
county, Ohio, and is the son of Piatt 
Bayliss and Anstis Barlow Walker. 
Both parents were natives of the state 
of New York, but moved to Ohio in 
their early married life. His father 
was a shoemaker by trade but by na- 
ture and practice a successful merchant, 
business man and speculator, and had 
he lived to even middle life would no 
doubt have amassed a fortune. As it 
was, he was in very comfortable cir- 
cumstances for the times in which he 
lived, when in 1849 he took the pre- 
vailing gold fever and embarked nearly 
all his fortune in a train of merchan- 
dise and started on the overland route 
to California. He died before the train 
had left Missouri. His partner took 
possession of the outfit, took it suc- 
cessfully to its destination, sold it at a 
good profit and was never heard of 
afterwards. Thus at nine years of age 
Mr. Walker, the subject of this sketch, 
was left fatherless, and the widow and 
four children but scantily provided for. 

From the time of his father's death 
until his fifteenth year, Mr. Walker's 
life was that of the average boy in a 
country village, save that the loss of 
his father and his mother's straightened 
circumstances made a deep impression 
upon him, and moved him to various 



efforts toward the betterment of the 
family purse, such as picking and sel- 
ling berries, selling papers, setting up 
ten pins, trying to learn various trades, 
etc., but it is amusing to those who 
have known his full life history,^ to see 
how even in those early days his busi- 
ness sagacity showed itself. If he 
picked berries he hired half a dozen 
boys to pick with him, paying so much 
per quart for the picking, but always 
reserved to himself the business end 
of the transaction, the marketing of the 
stock, and it was not often that he 
came out without a margin. 

At fifteen, his mother (who in the 
meantime had remarried) moved to 
Berea, Ohio, a little village near Cleve- 
land, for the better opportunity to edu- 
cate her children, as well as for better 
business chances. Here Thomas began 
clerking in a dry goods store, and 
awoke to a realization of the necessity 
of an education. While thus employed 
he mastered, outside of business hours, 
arithmetic and elementary algebra, 
after which he entered Baldwin Uni- 
versity, but he had only money enough 
to remain in college but one term of 
the year. At this time he purchased 
a piece of wood land on speculation 
and hired some of the students of the 
University, many of whom were like 
himself, struggling against poverty, to 
chop cordwood and rails. This ven- 
ture was a financial success, and gave 
him an insight into timber which was 
useful to him in after years. He later 
took up the life of a traveling sales- 
man, which he followed for three 
years or more, acting as agent for the 
sale of Berea grindstones for the Hon. 
Fletcher Hulet. During these years he 
always carried with him two traveling 
cases, a small one for his wardrobe, 
and a large one for his books, maps, 
tools and papers. In this way he kept 
up with his college class, mastered 
geometry, analytics, mechanics, and 
Newton's Principia, together with a 
thorough knowledge of chemistry. To 
accomplish all this, he had of course 
to utilize every waiting hour in a coun- 
try depot and every moment of the 
time which was not demanded by his 
business. He did not learn easily, had 
no brilliant memory or quick intuitive 
insight into the mysteries of things, 
but when he took up a subject he 
never rested until he knew not only all 
that the book before him contained, 
but also all that every other book 
within his reach contained, and all that 
he himself could figure out. Once 
conquered, it was his property for all 
time. Thus it happened while in school 
he was always hard at work through 
term time, never made any remarkable 
showing in the recitation room, but 
when the other students began_ to 
groan over approaching examinations 



he had time to go fishing, and on ex- 
amination days he was the whole class. 

When nineteen years of age Mr. 
Walker and a friend still younger took 
a contract in Paris, Illinois, of the 
Terre Haute and Illinois Railroad, to 
furnish a large amount of cross-ties 
and cordwood. This contract involved 
the purchase of timber, building houses 
for the men employed, and the general 
running of a lumber camp for eighteen 
months; but on the very week which 
saw the close of the work, the road 
went into the hands of a receiver and 
they lost the entire profits of the un- 
dertaking. 

Mr. Walker then took up teaching 
in a winter country school, meeting 
with success, but after two terms start- 
ed during the vacation on the road 
again. Hearing on this trip of the 
beauties and advantages for business 
in the then almost unknown city of 
Minneapolis, he took one of the old 
"Diamond Joe" line of river steamers 
at McGregor, Iowa, went to St. Paul 
and then by rail to St. Anthony Falls, 
over the only nine miles of railroad in 
the state, to Minneapolis. Here with- 
in the first half day, he had engaged 
to go into the upper and almost un- 
known parts of the state as a member 
of the surveying party of Mr. George 
B. Wright, and had written his prom- 
ised wife in Ohio, "I have found the 
city where we will make our horne." 
It was a case of love at first sight, 
and his affection for and loyalty to the 
city of Minneapolis has known no 
change or variation through all the 
years since that first day. 

The first trip resulted disastrously, 
as the party were driven from the 
woods by the outbreak of the war 
with the Indians in 1862, and all were 
in great peril before reaching Fort 
Ripley, where their numbers were glad- 
ly added to the small garrison then 
holding that point. Returning to Min- 
neapolis at the earliest opportunity, 
Mr. Walker rented desk room in the 
ofifice of Mr. L. M. Stewart, one of the 
prominent lawyers of the city, and sat 
down to a winter's work on his books, 
which in the spring drew from the 
lawyer, who was not given to wasting 
words of commendation on anyone, 
the comment, "You have done the 
hardest and best winter's work I have 
ever seen accomplished." 

Mr. Walker's first survey work in 
the pineries impressed him with the 
almost inestimable value of the stand- 
ing timber of the state. It seems but 
a natural thing now that almost any 
one should have so judged, but in that 
early day, the few Maine lumbermen 
who were operating in the state were 
not so impressed, and timber beyond 
the Rum river, eighteen miles from the 
city, found no purchasers, even at the 



government price of one dollar and a 
quarter per acre, and they laughed at 
the Ohio boy, who had come out fresh 
from school to instruct them in the 
values of timber. But Mr. Walker 
steadily held to his opinion and at last 
found capitalists who would put their 
money against his work in examina- 
tions and locations, and thereby ob- 
tained his first start in the lumber busi- 
ness, which has been his principal oc- 
cupation ever since. 

Mr. Walker, since that time, has built, 
owned, operated, either alone or asso- 
ciated with others, a large number of 
mills, and their connected lumber in- 
terests, yards, etc., the principal ones 
being the Butler Mills and Walker 
Mills, the Butler & Walker, the Camp 
& Walker, the Red River Lumber 
Company Mills, at Crookston, Minne- 
sota, and Grand Forks, Dakota, and 
later still in operation, the very ex- 
tensive plant at Akeley, Minnesota. At 
the same time he has carried on ex- 
tensive deals in the purchase and sale 
of pine land, as well as cutting and 
marketing the great quantities of logs 
from his own lands. 

Mr. Walker has done much in the way 
of encouraging manufacturing enter- 
prises to locate in Minneapolis, and 
many large and prosperous concerns 
owe their existence to his efforts in 
their behalf. The St. Louis Park, a 
manufacturing suburb of the city, of 
which he is the principal, if not the 
entire owner, contains many valuable 
plants, among which are counted one 
large agricultural implement factory, 
and a beet sugar plant, which has the 
last season manufactured over six mil- 
lions of pounds of sugar. Connecting 
this suburb with the city, Mr. Walker 
has built, owns and operates the Min- 
neapolis, St. Louis Park and Hopkins 
Electric Railway line, which is both 
a great convenience and a profitable in- 
vestment. 

Mr. Walker's holdings of real estate 
in the city are extensive, among which 
may be mentioned the most extensive 
commission plant in the United States, 
and in which are handled more fruits, 
both fresh and dried, vegetables and 
meats, than in the markets of any other 
place, except perhaps two or three of 
the very largest cities. The concen- 
trating of the wholesale commission 
business of the city in uniform build- 
ings under one ownership and system 
of rents, with abundant trackage and 
facilities for handling goods, all cover- 
ing between two and three large city 
squares, has made the commission busi- 
ness a pleasure to all concerned, and 
has permanently drawn about it the 
main wholesale district of the city. 

Within the last five years Mr. Walk- 
er has been turning his attention to 
the immense and almost unknown 



pineries of California, especially the 
sugar and yellow pines. Sugar pine is 
the largest, longest and finest pine 
timber in the world, and California yel- 
low (really white) pine is nearly as 
large and long and almost as valuable 
as the sugar. The demand for both 
kinds is sharp and unlimited. Mr. 
Walker has had explorers and land 
examiners constantly in the field and 
has spent a large part of his own time 
on the coast and in the forests study- 
ing all the minutiae of a new business 
in a new country. As a result, he has 
been convinced that the markets of 
the world are ready for the manufac- 
tured products of these great forests, 
and has bought heavily and fearlessly. 
His holdings cover the largest tract of 
sugar and yellow pine on the coast, 
and it is generally regarded as the 
finest and most valuable on the timber 
belt. The greater portion of this tract 
stands on a sloping table, readily ac- 
cessible for manufacturing and han- 
dling purposes. Mr. Walker is now most 
probably the largest individual holder 
of pine lands in the country. It is 
his intention to immediately develop 
this property by the construction of a 
standard gauge railroad, about one 
hundred and twenty miles in length, 
together with the necessary logging 
railroads, lumber mills, sash, door a.nd 
box factories, planing mills, dry hous'es, 
etc. 

It was largely through Mr. Walker's 
efforts that the present Public Li- 
brary of the city of Minneapolis was 
put in operation, by which, through an 
appropriation from the city, supple- 
mented by large gifts from individuals 
(of whom Mr. Walker was the leader), 
a magnificent building was erected, in 
which are housed not only the public 
library proper, but all the accumulated 
treasurers of the Athenaeum, and the 
Academy of Science. Here, also, the 
city has the nucleus of an art collec- 
tion, owning a number of pictures, and 
enjoying from year to year the contin- 
uous loan of over fifty fine canvases 
belonging to Mr. Walker. The Acad- 
emy of Science also owes no incon- 
siderable amount of its attraction to 
Mr. Walker's generosity. During his 
travels he collects fine shells, corals, 
stuflfed animals, or other valuable ad- 
ditions for the already large and in- 
teresting collection. Several exceed- 
ingly fine cases of minerals are his 
latest additions to former gifts. 

Upon the organization of the public 
library Mr. Walker was unanimously 
elected president of the board of di- 
rectors, which ofiice he has continuous- 
ly held by re-election to the present 
time, a period of sixteen years. 

Another outcropping of his eye for 
perfection, is his love for fine gems. 
He is a recognized authority in the 



East on the value of precious stones. 
He buys them and carries them about 
with him for pure love of their fire 
and fineness, and it is a rare moment 
when he cannot produce from some 
pocket or corner, a wonderful colored 
diamond or perfect ruby. It is per- 
fectly within bounds to say that he 
loves them for their own sake. 

Mr. Walker has been making a valu- 
able collection of oil paintings since 
1885. At first he bought slowly, but 
as the years have passed and his love 
of art increased, he has come to have 
confidence in his own judgment and 
has made an extremely fine collection 
of the best work of the best artists. 
He never buys a man's work until he 
thoroughly knows the man and his 
works. In this, way he has collected 
at his home one of the finest art refer- 
ence libraries in the country, to which 
he is constantly adding. He has at 
his home probably one hundred and 
fifty or two hundred canvases, with 
fifty more hung in the gallery of the 
Public Library, which form a collec- 
tion which for character stands second 
to no private collection in this country. 
Among the artists are such names as 
Rousseau, Corot, Diaz, Jacque, Jazet, 
Jules Breton, Madame Demont-Breton 
(his daughter), Sir Thomas Lawrence, 
Rembrandt, Peele, David, Le Fevre, 
Bougereau, Turner, Hogarth, Hans 
Holbein, Rembrandt, and a multitude 
of others. Besides the pictures, he 
has a very choice collection of ancient 
bronzes of the best period of Japanese 
and Chinese art work, ivories, rare 
potteries, jades, cameos, fine glass, etc. 
This collection is held open for the 
free use of the public during all day- 
light hours of all week days, and has 
done much toward educating and de- 
veloping the art taste of the city. 

Mr. Walker was married at Berea, 
Ohio, December, 19, 1863, to Miss Har- 
riet G. Hulet, the daughter of Hon. 
Fletcher Hulet, of that place, by their 
college president and the young lady's 
brother-in-law, Rev. John vWheeler. 
After spending the winter at the home 
of their parents in Berea, they jour- 
neyed to their home in the west. For 
five years they resided in Minneapolis 
East, or St. Anthony Falls as it was 
then called, removing thence to Min- 
neapolis proper, where they remained 
five years on First avenue South and 
Third street, after which the present 
home on Hennepin avenue was built, 
where the family have resided for 
twenty-seven years. The house as 
originally built has been added to on 
both sides and rear to accommodate 
the library, gallery, etc., etc. 

Mr. and Mrs. Walker have had eight 
children, six boys and two girls. To 
the training of their family both Mr. 
and Mrs. Walker gave up much of 



their time for many years, especial ef- 
forts being made to develop the practi- 
cal sides of their natures. The good 
effects of this manual training have 
been apparent since the boys entered 
business and had to handle machinery 
of all kinds. Of these eight children, 
seven are still living, the second son 
having died at the age of eighteen. Of 
the seven, six are married and live 
near home, one is in college, and one 
of the daughters is widowed. Four 
of the sons are in partnership with 
their father in the lumber business. 
All of the sons are capable, energetic, 
sensible business men, who will be 
well able to manage the large business 
interests which will some day fall upon 
them. Of the daughters, one is mar- 
ried to a wholesale merchant, and is 
the happy mother of three children. 
The other was the happy and useful 
wife of a prominent Methodist minister 
until he was called away. Among the 
treasures of this family are six grand- 
sons, all under five years of age. 

To only those who have the privilege 
of knowing Mrs. Walker in her private 
and social relations, can there come a 
full knowledge of her innate charm. 
She is a lady of rare culture and has 
that graceful tact which wins the es- 
teem of all who know her. She char- 
acteristically gives Mr. Walker the 
credit for many of her fine qualities, 
claiming that by long association with 
him she has imbibed some of his in- 
dustry, enthusiasm and generositv. She 
has kept pace with her husband and 
is well fitted to stand by his side. For 
twenty-five years past she has led a 
very busy life outside the home in 
hospital, reformatory, temperance and 
literary work, as well as in private 
charities. She has held for years the 
presidency of two important institu- 
tions, both of which have been large- 
ly built up and sustained through her 
instrumentality. — Prominent Men of 
the Great West. 



A BOOK BY T. B. WALKER. 



The Work is a Compilation Under the 
Title "The Son of Man." 



"The Son of Man" is the title of a 
small manual of Christian faith just 
published by the University Press, this 
city. It is a book compiled by T. B. 
Walker "for the special encourage- 
ment of members of the Young Men's 
Christian Association." 

"Mr. Walker has collated the testi- 
mony of great historic characters of all 
ages and all professions as to the divin- 
ity of Christ and the sublimity of the 
Christian religion. Napoleon, Wash- 
ington, Franklin, Addison, Locke, 



Raleigh. Rousseau, are a few of the 
celebrities whose opinions are cited. 

"This little book," says Secretary 
H. P. Goddard, of the Y. M. C. A., 
"will be of the utmost value in proving 
to young men how Christ has been in- 
terpreted by the greatest intellects in 
history." — Minneapolis Journal, May 
27, 1903. 



immense shipments of logs, lumber, 
mill machinery, and camp supplies, as 
through all these years the pine along 
the lines of the Great Northern have 
furnished the material for the principal 
part of his business. 



ONE OF THE SELF-MADE MEN 
OF MINNEAPOLIS. 

Leslie's Weekly. March 26. 1903. 
Thomas Barlow Walker, of Minne- 
apolis. Minn., was born in Xenia. Ohio, 
February 1st, 1840. His early life was 
spent in the town of his birth until 
his sixteenth year, when his mother re- 
moved to Berea, near Cleveland, for 
the better educational advantages for 
her children— his father having died 
when he was in his ninth year. From 
his earliest youth it was both neces- 
sary for him to assist his mother and 
sisters, and later make his own way 
through school. He tried various lines 
of work, such as are available in a 
small town to a young man without 
capital, such as clerking, teaching, con- 
tracting for the cutting of timber and 
clearing of land, commercial traveling, 
etc., all the time carrying on his 
studies whether in school or in the 
field with his axe and his men. 

His first business venture away from 
home, outside of his traveling agency 
for the sale of grindstones, the princi- 
pal business of the home village, was 
an extensive contract with the Terre 
Haute and St. Louis Railroad for the 
cutting of cross-ties and cordwood in 
the then somewhat extensive forests 
of Illinois. This venture consumed a 
year and a half and was a business 
success. 

In 1862 he went to Minneapolis, 
Minn., and took up the work for which 
he had specially studied to fit him- 
self — civil engineering, and for some 
years was engaged in railroad and 
government surveys. Through this 
work he acquired a familiarity with the 
pine forests of the State, and their 
value, and became convinced that in 
them was an opening for a life work. 
Lumbering at that time was a different 
proposition from what it became later, 
as at that time there were in the State 
but eight miles of railroad, being the 
old St. Paul and Pacific, which extend- 
ed only from St. Paul to St. Anthony, 
the beginning of the present magnifi- 
cent Great Northern system, every 
mile of the growth of which Mr. Walk- 
er has watched as the years have gone 
by, and utilized in his own growing 
and constantly extending but receding 
business. Over its lines as fast as they 
were built he has all through these 
thirty or more years constantly made 



HISTORY OF HENNEPIN COUNTY, 
AND THE CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS 

BY REV. EDWARD D, NEIL. 

Thomas B. Walker was born in 
Xenia, Green County, Ohio, February 
1st, 1840. His father died in 1849, and 
in 1856 the family removed to Berea, 
where he aided in the support of the 
family, and secured the rudiments of 
an education. Having a taste for 
mathematics, he pursued the study of 
engineering, astronomy, calculus and 
Newton's Principia. Mr. Walker came 
to Minnesota, in 1862. during the In- 
dian outbreak, and followed surveying, 
railroad engineering, and examining 
land and exploring until about 1873. In 
1868 he combined with Dr. Levi Butler 
and H. W. Mills, under the firm name 
of Butler, Mills and Walker, lumber 
manufacturers and dealers, continuing 
in the firm until 1876. During these 
years he was also interested in lands 
and logs with H. T. Welles. Franklin 
Steele, Major Camp, Herrick Bros., 
George Cleveland and others. In 1876, 
with George A. Camp, he purchased the 
Pacific mills of J. Dean & Company. 
This famous mill is described else- 
where. In 1863 Mr. Walker was mar- 
ried to Miss Harriet G. Hulet. of Berea, 
Ohio. They have eight children, two 
girls and six boys, all of whom are 
active, enterprising, rough and rugged. 
They are taught to play, hunt, fish, 
row boats, etc. It was through Mr. 
Walker's influence that the Athenaeum 
was opened for the benefit of the pub- 
lic. 



T. B. Walker, of Minneapolis, is best 
known to the trade as one of the 
wealthiest lumbermen in the United 
States. But Mr. Walker is not alone 
prominent in business circles. He is 
also noted as a man of letters, a speak- 
er and thinker of exceptional ability. 
There has been recently issued from 
the University Press, of Minneapolis, 
"The Son of Man," a book compiled 
by Mr. Walker for the special encour- 
agement of the members of the Young 
Men's Christian Association. He has 
collected the testimony of great his- 
toric characters of all ages and all pro- 
fessions as to the divinity of Christ 
and the sublimity of the Christian re- 
ligion. Napoleon, Washington, Frank- 
lin, Addison, Locke, Raleigh and 
Rousseau, are a few of the celebrities 
whose opinions are quoted. — Missis- 
sippi Valley Lumberman, May 29, 
1903. 



History of The Great Northwest 

Edited by C. W. G. Hyde and Wm. Stoddard, 1901. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



Thomas Barlow Walker. — While 
Minneapolis has great natural advan- 
tages in waterpower, situation and sur- 
roundings, these would have been of 
little avail had not courageous, far- 
sighted and public-spirited men of great 
energy taken hold of the enterprise at 
an early day with a determination to 
build a large city. The task was not 
as easy as it seems in 1901, after the city 
has become the metropolis of the state. 
A city at the confluence of two rivers 
which furnish easy transportation, was 
well under way only ten miles distant, 
it was the trade center of the North- 
west, and it had the additional prestige 
of being the capital or official center. 
Many deemed the project of building 
a city ten miles away chimerical or 
foolhardy. The men who overcame the 
numerous obstacles in the path, and 
wrung success from such adverse con- 
ditions, are entitled to special commen- 
dation. Their sagacity to perceive, 
their courage to undertake, their skill 
in making use of proper names, and 
their unflinching perseverance are char- 
acteristics which cannot be too highly 
extolled. Among those who were con- 
spicous in this work, Thomas B. Walk- 
er, the subject of this sketch, stands 
prominently in the front rank. He was 
born in Xenia, Ohio, February 1, 1840. 
His father was Piatt Bayless Walker, 
a native of New York, but long a res- 
ident of Ohio. By trade he was a shoe- 
maker, but by occupation and business 
habit he was a contractor and specu- 
lator. He was in good circumstances, 
but in 1849, when the California fever 
was at its height, he invested all his 
means in a train of merchandise which 
he started to take overland to Califor- 
nia. Cholera broke out in the com- 
pany, and Mr. Walker was one of the 
first victims. He died on the plains 
near Warrensburg, Mo. Although the 
train was carried through and the 
goods sold, none of the proceeds ever 
reached his family. Thomas B. Walk- 
er was thus left fatherless when nine 
years old. His mother was Anstis 
Keziah Barlow, of New York and 
later of Ohio. She was the youngest of 
a large family. Two of her brothers 
were judges, one in New York and the 
other in Ohio. Under these circum- 
stances, compelled to work from early 
youth, Mr. Walker had but few oppor- 
tunities to attend school. He, however, 
made such good use of what he had 
that at sixten years of age he entered 



Baldwin University, at Berea, Ohio, 
where he succeeded in remaining in 
nominal attendance for several years 
by being present for perhaps one term 
a year and keeping up with his class 
while absent at work, which was that 
of traveling as a salesman. While on 
road he carried two valises, the larger 
containing his school books which he 
used at every spare moment. The habit 
thus acquired of studying at all spare 
times, under all circumstances, has con- 
tinued with him through life, and has 
made him the well educated and thor- 
oughly informed man on a multitude 
of subjects which he is recognized to 
be today. At nineteen years of age, 
after many small ventures, he secured 
a contract from the railroad at Paris, 
111., for getting out cross ties and cord- 
wood. He continued this work for 
eighteen months, when the company 
failed and robbed him of all the profits 
which had accrued. He had, however, 
the experience and a good timber edu- 
cation, which, although not valued at 
the time, proved subsequently to be 
worth all it cost. On returning home 
he taught school for one year. He 
then resumed the traveling business, 
engaging with Hon. Fletcher Hulet to 
make a wholesale market for his Berea 
grindstones. On his way up tlie Mis- 
sissippi River, on this business in 1862, 
he met, at McGregor, Mr. J. M. Robin- 
son, of Minneapolis, who spoke so 
eloquently of the attractions and pros- 
pects of the embryo city that Mr. Walk- 
er, within an hour afterwards, was 
on his way to the promising hamlet. 
Almost as soon as he arrived he en- 
gaged to go with Mr. George B. 
Wright on a government land survey. 
The expedition was ignorant of the 
fact that the Indians were on the war 
path until they learned it by the for- 
cible experience of being driven out 
of the woods by the Indians. With 
difficulty and great peril the little band 
of surveyors traveled three days thru 
the hostile district, finally reaching 
Fort Ripley, where they were gladly 
welcomed as a re-enforcement sixteen 
strong to the small and poorly equip- 
ped garrison holding that point. 

After two or three years spent in 
government surveys, and one year on 
the survey of the St. Paul & Duluth 
Railroad — a service which gave him a 
thorough knowledge of the timber 
country — Mr. Walker took up the pine 
land business. Being practically with- 



out means, he associated with Dr. Levi 
Butler and Mr. Howard Mills, under 
the firm name of Butler, Mills & Walk- 
er, the junior member putting in his 
time, knowledge and experience against 
their money. The firm was very suc- 
cessful, under Mr. Walker's manage- 
ment, logging and building and operating 
mills and lumber yards. The partner- 
ship continued for several years and 
was terminated by the death of Dr. 
Butler, and the removal of Mr. Mills 
to California, in search of health. Mr. 
Walker was at the same time interested 
with Mr. Henry T. Welles, in the pur- 
chase of pine timber. Subsequently, 
Mr. Walker became engaged in the 
lumber industry in all parts of north- 
ern Minnesota and in Dakota. He 
owned and operated mills on the 
"Falls." He purchased and operated 
the "J- Dean" mill, rebuilding it after 
it burned, operating it for many years 
with Major George A. Camp, under 
the firm name o^f Camp & Walker. 
Later in company with his son, Gil- 
bert M. Walker, under the name of 
Red River Lumber Company, built 
two mills — one at Crookston, Minn., 
and one at Grand Forks, N. D. This 
firm is still active, with the addition 
of three more sons, but the mills are 
at Akeley. Mr. Walker is also associ- 
ated with Mr. H. C. Akeley, under the 
firm name of Walker & Akeley, in 
the ownership of large tracts of pine 
lands, but they operate no mills. 

While Mr. Walker has been so busy 
with the lumber business, he has been 
active in building up Minneapolis and 
the adjacent country. He built the 
Central Market and Commission Row, 
whereby the wholesale commission 
business — as well as other wholesale 
business — has been permanently located 
north of Hennepin avenue and west of 
Fourth street. This market is one of 
the largest and most commodious 
wholesale and retail markets in the 
West, while the volume of fruit and 
commission business handled in the 
row adjoining, which is part of the 
same enterprise, shows that Minneapo- 
lis is the great fruit and commission 
center of the Northwest. St. Louis 
Park, a suburb of the city, owes its 
existence to Mr. Walker, who was the 
owner of the land, and assisted in its 
development under the firm name of 
Land & Investment Company. It has 
large manufacturing concerns, with the 
noted great Beet Sugar Plant. The 
St. Louis Park & Hopkins Street Rail- 
way is part of the plan and it is a 
profitable investment, as well as a great 
help to the city and a convenience to 
residents of these thriving suburbs. 

Mr. Walker has also and at all times 
been a supporter of and a worker in 
and for the Board of Trade as well as 
the originator and promoter of the 



"Business Men's Union," which for 
many years did wonderful work in aid 
of the development of the city. The 
Y. M. C. A. has also claimed much of 
his attention and means. He is a 
member of the National Committee. 

Having in his youth made great use 
of public libraries wherever they were 
to be found in his travels. Mr. Walker 
early became a stockholder in the old 
"Athenaeum," the nearest approach to 
a public library in operation in this 
city. Later he became the means and 
instrument through which the present 
Public Library was organized and set 
in operation. He gave largely in aid 
of its beautiful building and appoint- 
ments and keeps its Art Gallery well 
stocked with fine works from his pri- 
vate collection. He has been Presi- 
dent of the Board of Directors since 
its first organization. 

As would naturally be expected, Mr. 
Walker has also in his home a fine 
collection of books in his private li- 
brary. Science, Theology, Political, 
Economy and many other lines are 
prominently represented, and he has 
gathered together for his own use and 
aid the finest Art Reference Library 
perhaps in the country. 

Politically, Mr. Walker is, as might 
be expected, a Republican. His first 
vote was cast for Lincoln. He is a 
close student of Political Economy and 
its bearings on good government. 
During the last two presidential cam- 
paigns, he spoke frequentlj' and wrote 
extensively on the issues involved. His 
writings attracted marked attention and 
were widely copied and circulated. 

THE W.\LKER .^RT G.\LLERY. 

During the last fifteen years or more, 
Mr. Walker has been engaged in mak- 
ing a collection of high grade first- 
class oil paintings and bronzes and 
other works of art. This collection has 
become known throughout this country, 
and largely abroad, as a choice and 
rare collection of the works of the best 
masters. Such names as Corot, Rous- 
seau, Rosa Bonheur, Diaz. Hogarth, 
Sir Thomas Lawrence, David. Le 
Fevre, Bougereau, Schreyer, Jacque, 
Breton, Madame Breton, Turner, Rem- 
brandt, Pcele and many others, are a 
guarantee for the character of the col- 
lection. The owner is often surprised 
at the high comparative rating given 
this collection by those who have seen 
the world's best galleries and who do 
not hesitate to place this in the first 
rank. Over fifty of these paintings are 
hung in the gallery at the Public Li- 
brary, but the larger part, with the 
bronzes and ivories, are in his gallery 
at the family residence at 803 Hennepin 
avenue. This gallery is held open to 
the public upon all days except Sunday, 
during the hours of daylight. That the 
opportunity and privilege of visiting 



this collection is thoroughly appreci- 
ated, is fully attested by the great num- 
bers who constantly avail themselves 
of it. 

One of Mr. Walker's strong char- 
acteristics has always been his devo- 
tion to his home and family, to whom 
he has given his best time and thought. 
From their earliest infancy he has de- 
lighted to make his children his com- 
panions, entering into their interests 
and taking them into his own. Books 
and tools, shops and workrooms, have 
been the "strong points" of the home 
on Hennepin avenue, through all the 
years of the growing up of the family, 
which consisted of eight children, of 
whom seven are still living. Of these, 
four sons are in partnership with their 
father, and one still in school. The 
two daughters have married, one of 
whom is widowed. There are also four 
grandchildren. 

In character and profession, Mr. 
Walker is a Christian of the most pro- 
nounced type, finding his home in the 
Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church. 
Having come by this faith through 
more difficulties than the average 
young man, he finds no greater pleasure 
in life than to direct others in the 
way in which he has come, and will, 
at any time, turn from his intricate 
business and with book in hand ex- 
pound to the chance listener the won- 
derful truths of the authenticity of the 
Bible as shown through the prophecies 
of the marvelous history of the Jews 
or any one of a dozen of other lines of 
research. His religion is of the active 
type also which prompts him to steady 
and constant benevolences. From his 
earliest record as a business man he 
has always been a generous and free 
giver to all works which commended 
themselves to his business judgment, 
whether it be through individual aid 
or organization. His purse has always 
been especially open to the enterprises 
in which his wife has been more par- 
ticularly engaged. 

The general summing up of the les- 
sons conveyed by the life of Mr. Walk- 
er, seems to be that, given good health 
carefully preserved by a well-ordered 
life, energy, perseverance, perfect hon- 
esty, of that high type which can re- 
organize and grant the rights of others, 
good principles, rightly adhered to, and 
Christian integrity, no young man need 
fail of success through lack of oppor- 
tunity. Mr. Walker's eminently use- 
ful and successful life has owed noth- 
ing at any period to inherited advan- 
tages of wealth or position, or the for- 
tunate strokes of accidental success. 
He has literally hammered out on his 
own anvil every bar and nail of advan- 
tage that has reared the structure of 
his fortunes. Steady and continuous 
work, studiously directed toward a def- 



inite and well-defined object, a will- 
ingness and ability to work and wait 
for results, and an enthusiastic inter- 
est in the work in hand have been the 
key notes of his life, and are the ele- 
ments of success which are within the 
reach of all who deem them worthy of 
the strife. 



THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK. 

In another column will be found an 
interview with Mr. T. B. Walker, on 
the general business outlook for the 
immediate future. The success that 
has attended Mr. Walker throughout 
his career, and especially the ability 
he has shown in weathering the several 
financial storms since he became prom- 
inent in the world of business, makes 
his opinion on matters of this kind 
particularly valuable. In the past 
thirty years he has seen two periods 
of great financial reverses and his fore- 
sight in preparing to meet them has 
saved him from the wreck that has 
come to thousands of others. It is 
significant that while he took special 
precautions just previous to the de- 
pressed times following the year 1873, 
and that he again anticipated the hard 
years that commenced with the year 
1893, he does not expect a similar con- 
dition of affairs now, and is not hedg- 
ing. — Miss. Valley Lumberman. 



T. B. WALKER. 

The above article was prepared by Mr. 
T. B. Walker at the request of the pub- 
lishers of The Lumberman, because he 
was recognized as an authority on Cali- 
fornia sugar and white pine. Mr. 
Walker is probably the largest indi- 
vidual timber owner in the world. For 
many years he has been a large oper- 
ator in white pine, but for the last 
fourteen years or more he has been ac- 
quiring both knowledge and timber in 
the far west. At the present time he 
owns about five hundred thousand 
acres in the country near Alt. Shasta, 
and a low estimate places the total 
stand of timber on this area at twenty 
billion feet. 

Mr. Walker is a familiar figure in 
Minneapolis, where he has been prom- 
inent in business circles for a number 
of years. He was born in Xenia, O., 
in 1840. His father was one of the 
"Forty-niners," whose graves mark the 
prairie trail to the California gold 
fields. He and three other children 
were left with a widowed mother in 
reduced circumstances. He managed 
to secure a good education for that 
day, attending one term each year at 
Baldwin University, at Berea, O., and 
working the rest of the year to pay his 
expenses. 

At nineteen years of age he became 
a traveling salesman for a grindstone 
manufacturer at Berea, and it was with 




l<('|ir<Hlii<-<i4>n friiiii |iliotou'i-3i|>li (iikoii of Mr. Wiilkcr in l!MI2. 

I mimI <o illuNlriilt- ]ir(i<-lt'N (li:i( :i|i|i«'ar«Ml in <li«' I'olU^vinvT iMihlicaUoiiM: 

MinnfsiiHilis llsiily Kc^vn. 
l\«'\v I'orli llcrailtl. 
Yliniifiiltolis .loiirnal. 

l.*-sli<-'N \\«M-Iii.>. 

I.iis AnKt-lcM it«-<M>ril. 

S«. I>inil \»>>v.s. 



a consignment of grindstones for St. 
Paul that he first came to Minnesota. 
Minnesota promised better things for 
him than Ohio grindstones and he 
joined the government surveying party 
in the pine woods. This put him in 
the line of his present business. He 
began putting his earnings into pine 
timber. Since that time Mr. Walker 
has rapidly advanced in material 
wealth, and from the earnings of his 
Minnesota timber he has become the 
possessor of his present vast holdings 
in the far west. He is in no immediate 
haste to develop his western timber, 
for as indicated in the article written 
by him, its value will continually in- 
crease as the years go by. — Mississippi 
Valley Lumberman, January 23, 1904. 



T. B. WALKER IN THE PULPIT. 



The Well Knovm Capitalist Preaches 

Forcibly at Fowler Methodist 

Church. 

T. B. Walker was heard as an ama- 
teur preacher yesterday morning at 
Fowler Methodist church, Franklin 
avenue and Dupont avenue. By re- 
quest Mr. Walker filled the pulpit for 
Rev. P. A. Cool. The result, said Mr. 
Cool, was a masterful effort. This 
sermon, which was commended also by 
members of the congregation, was an 
attempt to answer the question, "Why 
does God hide His personality from 
us. and what has He given us in place 
of it?" 

Said Mr. Walker: 

"Why cannot He, who has given us 
life and hope of a higher and better 
one, give us, thru His bountiful Provi- 
dence, a plain, unmistakable knowledge 
of His existence? We feel that if He 
could say to us, 'Your kindred and 
friend is not dead, but their bodies are 
laid aside and their spirits go to their 
home beyond, and if you will lead a 
right life, living the way that will fit 
you for a better one, you may meet 
them there,' it would bring a faith and 
a confidence in the future that would 
be absolutely boundless in the enjoy- 
ment that it would give us. And yet 
we receive no such token. 

"Yet if God's presence and His laws 
were revealed to us directly and He 
said to us, 'Obey and follow these pre- 
cepts and examples or be excluded 
from eternal life,' each one would be 
constrained to live a restricted life, do- 
ing the things required, refusing to do 
the i)rohibited things, as he would re- 
fuse to put his hands in the fire, and 
going thru to the end without demon- 
strating or exhibiting his true charac- 
ter and fitness for the higher and more 
perfect life. All must be free to de- 
velop their true characters without di- 
rectly or indirectly limiting their free 
agency. — Journal, May 11, 1903. 



MR. WALKER AN OPTIMIST. 

In this week's issue of the Missis- 
sippi Valley Lumberman, T. B. Walk- 
er, the millionaire lumberman, declares 
that he has no apprehensions regard- 
ing the immediate future in business. 
In part he says: 

"The apprehension that some un- 
favorable turn will come in our affairs 
is a common characteristic of the great 
majority of business men. It is natu- 
ral and very appropriate for each one 
to consider carefully the signs of the 
times and estimate the prospects and 
probabilities of the future. In 1873, 
and again in 1893, it was this custom 
of estimating carefully the prospects of 
the future that enabled me to avoid 
falling into the sheriff's hands. I 
hedged against panics a year or so 
before they arrived in the years men- 
tioned. I am not hedging against 
panics now." 

Mr. Walker is well known as a pru- 
dent and cautious man with immense 
interests at stake. If he is not hedg- 
ing, and is willing to proclaim to the 
public that such is the fact, it should 
and will be encouraging to men who 
have much less at stake and are not 
so competent as Mr. Walker to act as 
business barometers. 

With so many croakers tellinq;' us 
now that forsooth because we had a 
panic in 1873 and another in 1893, we 
shall soon have another, it is timely 
and decidely encouraging for a man 
like Mr. Walker to come to the front 
and assert that it will take at least 
two years more for the good times to 
wear themselves out. — Minneapolis 
Journal, March 20. 1903. 



Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American 
Biographies. 

Thomas Barlow Walker, manufac- 
turer, philanthropist, was born Feb. 1, 
1840, in Xenia, Ohio. He is manag- 
ing partner of the firm of Walker and 
Akeley, of Minneapolis, president of 
the Red River Lumber Company, with 
mills at Crookston, Minn., and Grand 
Forks, N. D., and at the head of the 
St. Louis Park syndicate, which is 
building a suburban city on the bound- 
ary of Minneapolis. With B. F. Nel- 
son and his son, Gilbert Walker, he is 
an owner of the Hennepin Paper Com- 
pany, and is engaged in many other 
enterprises, devoted to building up 
Minneapolis. Through his instrumen- 
tality and many years of work, the 
old Athenaeum Library Association was 
developed into the Public Library, 
which stands now third or fourth in 
circulation, among those of the cities 
in this country. 

7 



Public Art Gallery in a Private House. 

Rare Collection of Paintings in Thomas Barlow Walker's Resi- 
dence at Minneapolis are Open Six Days in the Week to All 
Who Call to See Them.— He Owns One of the Few 
Raphaels in the United States. 



The Republic. St. Louis, Mo., March 8. 1903. 



Many rich men have their hobbies. 
With some it is the mania for giving 
away libraries; with others it is a de- 
sire to acquire a baronial country 
estate. With T. B. Walker, of Minne- 
apolis, "the Pine King of the North," 
it is the collection of fine paintings. 
Ever since he was a boy, with money 
enough to buy one painting, his crav- 
ing for fine art has grown, until now, 
at the age of 52, he has the finest, the 
largest and the most select gallery in 
the United States. 

And with it all he is not selfish. Al- 
though the gallery is in a wing of his 
private residence, at the corner of Hen- 
nepin avenue and Eighth street, and 
the only entrance to it is through his 
front door, the gallery is open to the 
public six days in the week, and all 
who ring his bell and ask to see the 
old masters receive not only permis- 
sion from the white-aproned maid who 
answers the ring, but also a catalog as 
well. 

This private collection is by far and 
away better than that furnished by the 
Public Library gallery of the city, and 
were it not for the fifty or more paint- 
ings which belong to Mr. Walker and 
which hang in this gallery as a loan, the 
city's display of art would indeed be 
meager. 

Thomas Barlow Walker is one of 
the wealthiest and most influential 
citizens of Minneapolis. His career is 
a shining example to all boys of mod- 
erate circumstances who are trying 
to make their way in the world. He 
was born at Xenia, O., in 1840, and 
worked his way through Baldwin Uni- 
versity. When he went to Minneapo- 
lis, in 1862, he was a surveyor on the 
St. Paul and Duluth railway. While 
driving the road through the wilds of 
the West he became interested in the 
pine lands, and today he owns more 
pine country than any other man in 
America, his interest reaching to Cali- 
fornia — hence his title of the "Pine 
King." 

In the room devoted to old masters 
is one of the few Raphaels in this 
country. It is the portrait of Pope 
Julius 11. It was painted by Raphael 
as a study for the portrait now hang- 
ing in the Pitti Palace. Before Mr. 



Walker acquired it, it hung for years 
in the private gallery of Sir Cecil Miles, 
at Leigh Court, England. The can- 
vas had been stretched upon a wooden 
panel 2 inches thick, but the wood had 
to be planed down to half an inch on 
account of the honey-combing of the 
worms. 

HIS TWO REMBRANDTS. 

There are two Rembrandts in this 
room, "The Burgomaster," from the 
collection of Jacob Anthony Van Dam, 
of Dorchert, and "The Burgomaster's 
Wife." A smaller canvas, probably a 
portrait of Rembrandt's mother. A 
Rubens "Madonna and Child," repre- 
senting the Madonna, Christ and John 
the Baptist, came to the Walker col- 
lection from the gallery of Lord Nor- 
wich. Sebastiano del Piombo's paint- 
ing of "Vittoria Colonna," "Guido Reni's 
"Cleopatra's Last Hours," and Cipri- 
ani's "Assumption of the Virgin," are 
some of the examples of the other fa- 
mous old Italian masters which add 
strength to this private collection, but 
the Napoleon pictures are the ones 
which many persons come to Minne- 
apolis especially to see. 

I\Ir. Walker's "Portrait of Napoleon" 
is by Robert Lefevre, painted in 1810. 
For years it hung in Napoleon's apart- 
ments at Fontainebleau. When in ex- 
ile he presented it to Field Marshal 
Mortier, who, dying, willed it to his 
nephew. Count de la Grange, from 
whom Mr. Walker's agents secured it. 
As companion pieces are the portraits 
of Josephine, by Lefevre, in 1808, and 
a portrait of Empress Maria Louisa. 
"Napoleon in His Coronation Robes," 
by David, painted in 1805, is one of the 
most striking pictures of the great war 
lord in existence. It was given to 
Field Marshal Davoust by the Emperor, 
because Davoust and he were school- 
mates at Brienne. 

The brilliant landscape painters of 
France, Corot, Rousseau, Dupre, Diaz, 
Harpignes. Cazin, Monticelli, and the 
animal painters Jacquin, Chagnau, Geri- 
Canet, Veuillefroys, Charles Jacque and 
Aymar Pezant, are all represented with 
one or more canvases, but by far the 
most popular is the "Lion," by Rosa 
Bonheur, and "Cattle Resting in the 



1 



Shade," by her talented brother, Aug- 
uste Bonheur. 

DEATH OF NELSON. 

The painting which has done much 
toward creating a hatred for war, the 
famous battle picture, Paul Jazet's 
"Death of Nelson," is another valuable 
canvas on Mr. Walker's walls. It is 
one of the most fearfully real pictures 
known to art. The reeling figure of 
the dying Nelson supported by the 
.■solicitous Hardy, the surgeon, himself 
wounded, and the stalwart negro ending 
his life beside the little white hoy 
writhing and shrieking aloud in agony; 
sailors dying on every side, and the 
naked gunners, their hard faces covered 
with sweat and grime, fighting steadily 
against a wall of smoke and glare (a 
caldron of man's hate boiling over), a 
fitting death scene for so great a war- 
rior. 

The German painters are also well 
represented in this collection. Signed 
to many canvases, big and little, are 
to be found the names of such men as 
Adolph Schreyer, August Schenk, 
Schermer, Emil Rau, Andreas Achen- 
bach, Werner Schuch, Ludwig Knaus, 
Franz Unterberger, Heinrich Losson, 
Lousherberg, Sinkels, Riedel, Hugo 
Kauflfman, Van der Venne and many 
other. Of these artists perhaps the 
work of Wilhelm von Kaulbach remains 
with you most after you have been 
through the gallery. His "Fall of 
Babel'' is an immense canvas. It was 
the cartoon for the mural painting for 
Staircase Hall in the new Museum at 
Berlin, and was owned for a long time 
by Sir James Duncan of London. 

Another painting which served as 
a preliminary canvas for a greater work 
is Turner's "Crossing the Brook." It 
was the original of the large canvas 
which now hangs in the National Gal- 
lery in London, and it came from the 
collection of Lord Jersey. 

Jean Rosier, the chief conductor of 
the Academy of Malines, received a 
medal of honor at Antwerp in 1894 
for the large picture of "King Charles 
I., after the Battle of Marston Moor." 
It is one of the chief treasures of Mr. 
Walker's heart. And the "human inter- 
est" in the picture explains why its 
present owner paid a fabulous price for 
it and holds it dear. The artist select- 
ed the time when Charles is informed 
that his army is defeated and that 
Cromwell is on the road to London. 
The King realizes that the worst is to 
come. He sits like one paralyzed. His 
dog lays his head on his master's knee 
and tries to sympathize with him. 
Prince Rupert, Captain Stanley and 
Minister Oliver are grouped about the 
table. An officer who has brought the 
news stands in the doorway awaiting 
an order. 



THE AMERICAN MASTERPIECE. 

In his search over the entire world 
for paintings, Mr. Walker has not for- 
gotten American artists. One is Ben- 
jamin West's "Lear Discovered in the 
Hut by Gloucester." It is a painting 
highly prized in England and America, 
because West was the first great .\mer- 
ican artist. The portrait of George 
Washington, which is in this gallery, 
is by Rembrandt Peale. Mr. Sutton 
of the American Art Gallery has made 
a study of Washington portraits, and 
he says that it is "similar to but better 
than the one hanging in the President's 
room, back of the Senate Chamber, in 
the Capitol." 

There are two paintings in the Walk- 
er collection by George Inness, Sr., who 
has been called "the American Rous- 
seau," and four by his equally talented 
son. The historical works of art by 
E. Schuselle, "General Jackson Before 
Judge Hall," upon which the artist 
spent ten years in carefully reproduc- 
ing the scene so that the characters in 
it would be depicted with all the faith- 
fulness of a perfect portrait, is one 
of the chief canvases in the American 
room. Edward Moran is represented 
by a packet ship rolling on high waves, 
and Thomas Moran's masterpiece, 
"Venice and the Palace of the Doges," 
hangs beside his brother's ofifering. 

J. C. Brower's "Modern Eve." Weste- 
beek's "Shepherd and Sheep," George 
Bogert's "A Windy Day in Finistere," 
H. P. Smith's "Sunset," Arthur Tait's 
"Maternal Solicitude," Robert Minor's 
"After the Storm," Freeman Thorp's 
"Portrait of General Miles," David 
Johnson's "A Clearing— Mount Lafay- 
ette, N. H.," Arthur Parton's "New 
England Homestead on a Stormy 
Morning," and Hill's "Painting of the 
City of Minneapolis Fifty Years Ago," 
are some of the American moderns to 
be found in the Walker gallery. 



T. B. WALKER'S FINE COLLEC- 
TION. 



(Minneapolis Times, April 20, 190L ) 

T. B. Walker has arranged a most 
handsome exhibition of bronzes and 
works of vcrtu which he has placed in 
his art gallery at Eighth street and Hen- 
nepin avenue. Mr. Walker has spent 
years making the collection and it is 
safe to say there is nothing in the west 
that in any way equals it. He has the 
advantage of a ripe judgment and his 
selections are most handsomely dis- 
played in cabinets and on shelves. The 
large articles are arranged around the 
room on shelves and the smaller are 
most attractively displayed in a hand- 
some cabinet. There are bronzes, 
Chinese and Japanese ware, and the 



prettiest things imaginable in the line 
of vases of glass and jade. 

The old Chinese temples have fur- 
nished their contributions, and silver 
and gold bronzes, finely wrought, are 
in evidence. Delicately carved ivory 
abounds and one pretty piece is a ball 
within which are a dozen or more 
smaller balls. Mr. Walker's collection 
of ivory carvings is said to be about the 
best in the United States and he takes 
great pleasure in them. 

But his carvings are not confined to 
ivory for there are a number of rock 



crystal, the handsomest of which is one 
carved into a bust of Queen Victoria. 
But the orient alone has not been the 
only contributor to the collections, for 
the best work of the artists of the old 
world is in evidence. 

Great care has been exercised in the 
grouping of the articles in the collec- 
tion and the effect is at once pleasing 
and instructive. Visitors are frequent 
and Mr. Walker takes much delight in 
explaining the different articles in the 
collection. 



PROMINENT MEN OF TH E GREAT WEST. 

By Manhattan Publishing Co., 1894. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



Thomas Barlow Walker, son of Piatt 
Bayless and Anstis (Barlow) Walker 
was born at Xenia, Ohio, on the first 
day of February, 1840. His parents had 
moved to Ohio from New York State, 
where they were connected with many 
highly respected families and some of 
whose members had attained eminence. 
Mrs. Walker was a daughter of Hon. 
Thomas Barlow, and a sister of Judge 
Thomas Barlow, of Canastota, N. Y., 
and of Judge Moses Barlow, of Ohio. 
When young Walker was eight years 
of age his father invested all of his 
means in helping to fit out a train 
bound for the gold fields of California. 
The expedition started, and while en 
route Mr. Walker was stricken with 
cholera and died, and as his partners 
in the enterprise were not overburdened 
with conscientious scruples nor over 
high notions of commercial honor, his 
widow was left penniless, and never 
received a dollar of what should have 
come to her as his share. Left in al- 
most destitute circumstances with her 
four children, one of whom was still 
a babe, she bravely faced the world 
and commenced the battle against ad- 
verse circumstances. Though young in 
years, she made a brave fight, and la- 
ter reaped the fruits of her labor in 
seeing her children grown to manhood 
and womanhood, highly respected and 
conscientious Christians. Her later 
years were spent with Thomas, the 
subject of this sketch, in his home at 
Minneapolis, and there she peacefully 
passed away on the 23rd of May, 1883. 
The youth of Thomas was similar 
to that of any other boy in like cir- 
cumstances, but when sixteen years of 
age, the family moved to Bcrea, Cuy- 
ahoga county, Ohio, in order to take 
advantage of the educational facilities 
of the Baldwin University. Here for 
the first time he fully realized the im- 
portance of a good education, and throw- 



ing aside all boyish habits he became 
a studious man, bending every energy 
to the acquiring of an education. His 
tastes led him to devote much of his 
time to the study of the higher mathe- 
matics and the sciences, in which, not- 
withstanding he could not attend more 
than one term at the university each 
year, he made great progress and often 
outstripped those who were fortunate 
enough to be able to attend daring the 
entire school year. He obtained a 
situation as a traveling salesman for 
Hon. Fletcher Hulet, the manufactur- 
er of the Berea grindstones. While 
traveling, the most important part of 
his baggage was his heavy case of 
books, to which he devoted every 
minute of his spare time. The deter- 
mination which he stuck to his books 
has always been one of his leading 
characteristics. Obstacles only seemed 
to stimulate him to greater effort, and 
he would never rest until they were 
overcome. When he was nineteen 
years of age his business took him to 
the small town of Paris, 111., where he 
conceived the idea of buying timber 
lands, and cutting ties for the Terre 
Haute and St. Louis Railroad Co., 
whose road was then under construc- 
tion. This was a stupendous under- 
taking for one who was without capital 
or experience in the business and who 
was yet but a boy in years, but by 
steady application and hard work he 
got the project under way and was in 
a fair way to make money out of his 
contract when the railroad company 
failed and his profits only amounted to 
a few hundred dollars. With the small 
amount of money that he had saved 
he returned to his mother's home and 
to his books and during the following 
winter he taught for one term in a 
near-by district school. In teaching 
he was highly successful. At this time 
he ranked the profession of teaching 



above all others, owing to the impor- 
tant trust confided to those who have 
in their hands the molding and direc- 
tion of the plastic mind of youth; and 
thinking to adopt the profession as the 
vocation of his life, in 1862 he made 
application to the board of the Wiscon- 
sin State University for the position 
of assistant teacher of mathematics. 
While waiting the result of his applica- 
tion he continued his commercial 
travels, and at McGregor, Iowa, he 
met a citizen of the then small hamlet 
of Minneapolis, Mr. J. M. Robinson, 
who so successfully painted the beau- 
ties and prospects of the then strag- 
gling village, that Mr. Walker deter- 
mined to visit the place and see for 
himself whether this was not the place 
for which he had been looking in which 
to establish his home. Accordingly 
he took the next steamer for St. Paul, 
taking with him a consignment of 
grindstones for Mr. D. C. Jones of 
that city. On the wharf at St. Paul he 
met an energetic young man, whose 
duties were those of both clerk and 
workman for the transportation com- 
pany, and who sorted over the grind- 
stones, picking out and putting to one 
side all that were "nicked or spalted," 
and which Mr. Jones was permitted 
to reject. That young man was James 
J. Hill, who has since become so justly 
celebrated in railway circles, and that 
day upon the wharf at St. Paul com- 
menced a friendship between himself 
and Mr. Walker that time has never 
shaken although both have since grown 
wealthy and celebrated. 

Finishing his business in St. Paul 
Mr. Walker traveled over the entire 
length of the only railroad in Minne- 
sota, which was nine miles long and 
operated between St. Paul and Minne- 
apolis, and two hours after his arrival 
in the latter place he had engaged to 
go out on a government survey with 
Mr. George B. Wright, who was the 
leading surveyor of that section. As 
he had no technical knowledge of sur- 
veying, Mr. Walker engaged to carry 
the chain, while his employer manipu- 
lated the instrument, but they had only 
been out a short time when Mr. Wright 
carried the chain and committed the 
instrument to his employee. The ex- 
pedition, however, was not finished, 
for the Indian outbreak caused them 
to abandon it and forced them to take 
refuge at Fort Ripley. Mr. Walker re- 
turned to Minneapolis and during that 
summer his time was devoted to sur- 
veying for the first trial line of the 
St. Paul & Duluth railroad. Shortly 
after he arrived in Minneapolis he was 
notified that the Board had appointed 
him assistant teacher of mathematics 
for the University of Wisconsin, but 
the decision was delayed too long, as 
he had already engaged himself to Mr. 



Wright. In 1868 Mr. Walker began 
his first deal in pine lands. His knowl- 
edge, gained on his many surveying 
tours, of the vast tracts of as yet un- 
located pine lands, strongly impressed 
him with the idea of their inmiense 
value and he determined to open them 
up. Mr. Walker had but little money 
at this time, so he took as partners 
in his enterprise the Hon. L. Butler 
and Howard W. Mills, the last two 
gentlemen furnished the necessary cap- 
ital while Mr. Walker supplied the 
brains and labor. They first engaged 
in locating pine lands, and afterwards 
in logging, the manufacture of lumber, 
and selling pine stumpage. This part- 
nership continued for two years, when 
Mr. Mills was compelled to withdraw 
on account of ill health, and the firm of 
Butler & Walker was formed, which 
continued the business until several 
years later, when fire destroyed the 
mills, the machinery in two of which 
belonged to this firm, and the loss en- 
tailed was so heavy that they were 
forced to form a partnership known 
as L. Butler & Co., the partners being 
Mr. Walker, Dr. Levi Butler, O. C. 
Merriman and James W. and Levi 
Lane. They operated the large shore 
mill on the east side of the dam and 
for several years did the largest man- 
ufacturing business in the city. Thrs 
firm was succeeded in 1871 by Butler 
& Walker, which, however, closed up 
in 1872, because Mr. Walker was un- 
willing to conduct the business during 
the depression which followed and 
which entailed heavy losses upon those 
who continued in business. In 1877 the 
firm of Camp & Walker was formed, 
the partner being Major George A. 
Camp, who had been for many years 
surveyor general of logs and lumber 
in the district and who was an expert 
at handling logs. The Pacific mill, 
which had long been operated by Joseph 
Dean & Company, was purchased and 
operated until the fall of 1880, when 
it was destroyed by fire. During the 
succeeding winter, it was rebuilt on the 
old site, after completion being the best 
mill that had ever been erected in 
Minneapolis. It was continued in oper- 
ation until the ground on which it stood 
was required for railroad purposes, 
when it was torn down in 1887. Owning 
their own pine lands the firm of Camp 
& Walker did a large business, by far 
the largest in the city. Mr. Walker had 
located valuable pine land up about the 
sources of the Red Lake river, and in 
1882 he, with his eldest son, Gilbert M., 
organized the Red River Lumber Com- 
pany, and built a large saw mill at 
Crookston and another at Grand Forks 
on this river. These mills have been 
in operation each year since their con- 
struction up to the present time, the 
management being conducted by Gil- 



bert I\I. Walker. These various mills 
have given employment each year to 
thousands of men, and besides this the 
Red River valley mills have so cheap- 
ened the cost of material that it has 
greatly helped many a poor man in the 
erection of his home. Besides his lum- 
ber business Mr. Walker is largely in- 
terested in many other enterprises both 
public and private, chief of which is 
probably the "Flour City National 
Bank," of Minneapolis, of which he is 
president. 

Throughout his entire life Mr. Walk- 
er has valued books and the knowledge 
to be acquired from them as among the 
most important things of this life. _ We 
have seen how he devoted every minute 
of spare time to study in his younger 
days, and the affection for books has 
never wavered, in fact his old text 
books, worn by constant use, and soiled 
by oil that dripped from many different 
lights, now find a place in his handsome 
library, occupying the post of honor. 
It is not therefore strange that when the 
Minneapolis Athenaeum was founded 
he was a liberal contributor and a large 
stockholder. But this did not nearly 
meet his idea of what was needed, for 
the Athenaeum was a close corporation 
and its reading rooms and library were 
open only to stockholders. Mr. Walker 
desired to give its benefits a much 
wider range, and to accomplish this he 
gave years of labor and freely of his 
money, though opposed by many of the 
stockholders. He commenced by buy- 
ing shares which he distributed among 
many young people, and later he suc- 
ceeded in lowering the prices of shares 
and in having the doors of the reading 
room thrown open to the public, and 
the books of the library available to 
those who paid a nominal fee. Yet 
these concessions did not meet with his 
views of what the public really needed, 
and through the agitation caused by the 
changes already made and by his per- 
sistent labors for a really free library, 
giyen in many cases to the detriment 
of his private business and against 
the determined opposition of many, he 
finally saw success crown the efforts 
to give Minneapolis her magnificent 
public library. In this work Mr. Walk- 
er was for a tinVe much misunderstood 
and the opposition to him was for a 
time bitter in the extreme. The plan 
adopted was both unique and compre- 
hensive. The books and the property 
of the Athenaeum were transfered to 
the city library together with the fund 
that Dr. Kirby Spencer had bequeathed 
to it, a large subscription by Mr. Walk- 
er and several other liberal citizens 
and an appropriation by the city, were 
used for the erection of the building, 
and a tax of one half mill upon the dol- 
lar of valuation of the city property 
was authorized for its support. After 



the present magnificent building was 
finished, quarters were provided in the 
building for the Academy of National 
Science and for the Society of Fine 
Arts, in both of which Mr. Walker has 
taken an especial interest. The Art 
Gallery is liberally filled with many 
specimens of rare and costly paintings, 
many of which came from M. Walker's 
private collection or from that of his 
life-long friend Jas. J. Hill. The library 
board elected Mr. Walker as its presi- 
dent, which position he still holds as 
a well-deserved and graceful compli- 
ment to his devotion to this great work. 
The Minneapolis Land and Investment 
Co., of which Mr. Walker is also presi- 
dent, is another gigantic undertaking, 
which owes its being to his inspiration. 
Its leading idea was to benefit Minne- 
apolis by furnishing suitable sites for 
manufacturing. Accordingly 1,700 acres 
of land were purchased just west of 
the city limits and already a new city 
is springing up there. 

On December 19, 1863, Mr. Walker 
was married to Miss Harriet G Hulet, 
daughter of Hon. Fletcher Hulet, of 
Berea, O. She has ever since shared 
his struggles and in later years his 
prosperity, having ever been a loving 
wife and mother and a valuable help- 
mate. Eight children have been born 
to this union, all of whom are still 
living excepting Leon, the second son, 
who was taken away just as he was 
entering upon manhood's estate. 

Mr. Walker erected his present resi- 
dence on the corner of Eighth street 
and Hennepin avenue in 1874. One of 
its chief attractions is the art gallery, 
which contains the finest private col- 
lection of paintings in the West, all 
collected by Mr. Walker, who is an 
enthusiastic admirer and an excellent 
judge of art. Besides his great public 
acts of charity Mr. Walker has for 
years been quietly disbursing immense 
sums among the needy, following strict- 
ly the admonition which says, "let not 
your left hand know what your right 
hand doeth." When the grasshopper 
visitation came upon the farmers of 
the western part of the state, causing 
them to lose all their crops, Mr. Walk- 
er bought up all the buckwheat and 
turnip seed on sale in Minneapolis, St. 
Paul and Chicago and personally su- 
perintended its distribution throughout 
the afflicted district, these being two 
crops that could be raised even at that 
late season, and through this distri- 
bution much suffering was allayed and 
rnany cattle were saved from starva- 
tion. This brief sketch gives a partial 
idea of what manner of man is Mr. 
Thomas B. Walker. His struggle com- 
menced at a very early age and what 
he has done has been done unaided. 
No enterprise once undertaken by him 



has been allowed to fail, and though 
he has several times been seriously 
set back by both fire and flood he has 
kept resolutely at work and in the end 



has conquered. He is still actively en- 
gaged in business and enjoys the hearty 
good wishes and esteem of the com- 
munity. 



THE BRONZE ROOM. 



Wonderful Collection in the T. B. Walker Gallery. Many 
Articles of Vertu Shown. Fine Oriental Work, With Pieces 
of Tiffany Glass Jade, Cameos, Enamel, Etc. 



(Minneapolis Times Aug. 18, 1903.) 



It is safe to say that the art center of 
Minneapolis is the Walker gallery at 
Eighth street and Hennepin. Although 
it may not compare in size with great 
collections in other cities, nowhere can 
there be found a better selected aggre- 
gation of art works when the compara- 
tively short time since Mr. Walker 
formed the nucleus of his present col- 
lection is considered. 

An assembling of articles of vertu 
such as Mr. Walker has laid the foun- 
dation for in his art building is the 
work of a life time and is obtained only 
through the medium of a ripe judg- 
ment, a fine discrimination and the lav- 
ish expenditure of money. In the line 
of gradual progress and expansion Mr. 
Walker has rearranged the articles 
which the bronze room already con- 
tained and has added new ones. One 
of the pictures shown on this page il- 
lustrates the manner of the disposition 
of the bronzes. The larger pieces have 
been placed on glass shelves erected 
along parts of three sides of the room. 
The small articles which might easily 
be lost are in a large new glass case 
placed in the center of the room. This 
collection of cabinet pieces consists of 
the finest bronzes, Japanese and Chinese 
earthenware vases, of Tiffany glass and 
jade, purple and silver enamel pieces, 
of cameos and facsimiles of the great 
diamonds of the world. The diamond 
representations in a case by themselves, 
are cut from pure Jap crystals and are 
as near like diamonds in appearance as 
the gems themselves. The collection 
in the cabinet has been years in gath- 
ering. It has been brought together 
piece by piece. 

SOME OF THE BRONZES. 

Among the bronzes are several fine 
"gold" pieces and incense burners from 
the old Chinese temples, and vases of 
silver and gold bronze finely wrought. 
On the upper shelf of the compartment 
is perhaps the finest lot of snuflf bot- 
tles ever gotten together. They are 
made from oriental jade, oriental am- 
ber and cut crystal of all colors and 
shades and forms. The covers are 
chiefly of beautifully colored jade cov- 



ers. _ Not content with adorning the 
exterior of these bottles the makers 
have carved and painted some of them 
on the inside with exquisite figures and 
designs. All of these are of very hard 
stones cut out so as to be used to carry 
the snuflf. 

Amongst the bottles is a camphor 
glass with a fine crystal cover. Also 
a fatty jade bottle, one from gold stone 
which is very beautiful, others from 
chalcedony, catchelong, and some of 
variegated colored glass made in early 
times in China. 

AN IVORY ODDITY. 

One of the oddities in the case is 
an ivory ball containing thirteen other 
balls cut one inside of the other, be- 
ginning with an exceedingly small one, 
scarcely larger than a pea. This in- 
terior ball is surrounded by another 
larger one which in turn is contained 
in a still larger one, and these in other 
balls gradually larger through to the 
surface. Each and all of these balls are 
perforated in diflferent lines from the 
center to circumference so that the 
whole number may be seen and counted 
from the exterior. 

The articles which might be termed 
"cutest," as well as showing the great- 
est ingenuity and skill, are perhaps the 
finest assortment of ivory carvings 
ever put together in the United States 
or Europe. Each of them represents 
a complicated scene of people, animals 
of different kinds, together with trees, 
dragons, boats and horses and other 
things. None of them is over four 
inches across the base. Each is carved 
in the most minute and elaborate man- 
ner. Every group has a piece inlaid on 
the bottom, giving the name of the 
artist and the date of the carving. One 
scene represents a lot of harpies who 
have found a woman, a creature which 
they have never before laid eyes on. 
They are subjecting her to a various 
tests, one of which is flying, an art of 
which they themselves are masters. In 
another several imps have found a large 
drum which they are testing in various 
manners. The most interesting per- 
haps, represents a lot of blind men who 



are examining an elephant, in a vain 
endeavor to discover what it is. 
CURIOUS WORKS OF ART. 

A recent addition is a carving made 
from a quartz crystal, which is without 
a flaw. It is carved into a bust of the 
late Queen Victoria. Some magnificent 
old china vases dating back 500 years 
and one old giant crackle vase are put 
into this case for sake keeping. Next 
to the giant crackle, is a beautiful 
brown one of fine color and tone, 
fashioned of petty crackle, and three 
iron rust vases of very fine crackle with 
dark brown bases and some brown iron 
bronze ones inlaid with silver and gold. 
Each of these old pieces contains the 
engraved name of the artist who made 
it. Numerous fine, large ivory carv- 
ings are in the collection, one repre- 
senting a saint drifting through the 
clouds, another dragons in combat. On 
the same shelf is a carved and colored 
ivory vase, a beautiful rhodonite vase 
and a solid affair carved from Spanish 
topaz. Another magnificent one of 
cut and polished sunstone from Swede- 
strand, Norway, deserves especial men- 
tion. Other small ones are of beauti- 
ful red Tififany glass, silver enamel and 
ox blood earthenware. Of the latter, 
two are from China, and two very beau- 
tiful blue ones were made by one of the 
finest workmen in Japan. The same 
artist has also contributed an ox blood 
vase. Other vases are of colored fluor- 
spar and some finely colored and 
formed pieces are not herein particular- 
ly described. 

Many of the articles in this case are 
the best out of 500 pieces that English 
government representatives collected. 

WOULD AROUSE A COLLECTOR'S ENVY. 

If the case whose contents have just 
been described were not taken into 
consideration at all, but were thrown 
out of the room entirely, the glass 
shelves shown in the accompanying 
picture are covered with bronzes fit to 
set an old collector wild. Travelers 
may visit the large cities of this coun- 
try and of Great Britain and the con- 
tinent and yet not find in so small a 
compass a collection equal to the one 
which has just been arranged on these 
shelves in Mr. Walker's bronze room. 
The Chinese and Japanese work is said 
by connoisseurs to be as fine speci- 
mens as can be found in any museum. 

Mr. Walker's accumulation comes 
largely from the collections of promi- 
nent people as they are broken up 
through the death of the owner or 
otherwise. Among them are pieces 
formerly owned by Lord Jersey, Earl 
of Chichester and Prince Matsu. 
Whenever professional collectors have 
access to a magnificent piece, or sev- 
eral of them, they are boxed up and 
expressed to Mr. Walker, who retains 
them or not, as he may wish. 



CINNABAR LACQUER VASE. 

One of the finest vases in the collec- 
tion is of cinnabar lacquer. It was 
made by hand and is not equaled in 
the United States. Layer after layer 
of cinnabar was put in the form wanted 
and then most magnificently carved on 
all sides, producing an incomparably 
artistic design. One of the pieces 
on these shelves is an example of 
inlaid engraving. It is a vase of black 
iron bronze, and where the lines 
and points are engraved fine strips of 
gold are inserted, so completely cover- 
ing the surface that it shows only the 
precious metal. This vase was the re- 
sult of ten years' work by an excep- 
tional artist. Only one piece of this 
size is in existence. It was the last 
work of this man, for he ruined his 
eyesight in its production. 

Sun spot bronzes are numerous in 
the collection which Mr. Walker has 
assembled. One of the particular stars 
is a temple vase for incense burning. 
It was made during the Chinese dynas- 
ty beginning 1414 and ending in 1436. 
The cover is of inlaid jade. Jade is 
a mineral much used in China for art 
work. It is very tough and hard to 
cut. Instruments pointed with dia- 
mond and the best emery are neces- 
sary to make any impression on it at 
all. In addition to this it comes in 
small pieces and is not found in large 
quantities. Consequently jade articles 
are of high value. Tififany in New York 
has a case of jades containing $100,000 
worth of pieces. 

SUN SPOT VASES, 

Mr. Walker has six other sun spot 
vases, gathered from various ancient 
temples in China, coming through dif- 
ferent collectors. One of the pieces 
around which mystery clings is a light 
green and red bronze vase, in which the 
red and green are put together in some 
manner not yet discovered by modern 
artists. The red runs through from the 
center to the surface. The material is 
too hard to have been hammered to- 
gether and it could not have been made 
as a casting. It is said by experts that 
no vase of its kind is to be found in the 
world. Some of these Chinese and Jap- 
anese pieces have finer color and tones 
than any painting. In this room stands 
an earthenware hand-made dish covered 
with lace work of gold wire placed by 
hand diagonally around it in the most 
perfect and uniform manner. Owing 
to the variations of the surface the hand 
work is much more perfect than if done 
by a dividing engine. No flaw can be 
found in the delicate tracery. 

All of these bronzes are intended to 
represent the finest colors and form 
that the artists can produce. Color and 
form are the highest ideals that the 
Japanese and Chinese have, and partic- 
ularly is this true of the Japanese, who 



get the finest colors that have ever 
been composed. 

THREE FINE BRONZES. 

Mr. Walker has three large valuable 
bronzes in this room; one of them a 
large life-like lion by Delabrierre, and 
the other two are Barye bronzes of 
smaller size, representing a lion and 
lioness. Air. Walker also owns Lord 
Jersey's "Old Man of the Sea." He was 
formed from the foam of the ocean, 
and the great dragon set him in charge 
to watch the sea. He is represented by 
the artist as standing with wind-blown 
garments holding the ocean in his hand, 
with the dragon over his head keeping 
watch. The colors and tones are un- 
equaled. 

A COSTLY ACCIDENT. 

The second photograph on this page 
shows two hand carved alabaster col- 
umns on either side of a painting which 
Mr. Walker acquired about a year ago. 
It is Jean Guillaume Rosier's "King 
Charles I.. After the Battle of Marston 
Moor." This work has been described 
at length in the press. The two fluted 
pillars, however, are new and have ad- 
ditional interest because of an accident 
which happened to one of them on 



Easter Sunday at the Hennepin .Avenue 
Methodist church. The pillars and the 
vases which properly surmount them 
were made by an Italian artist living 
:n New York City. Mr. Walker orig- 
mally made the purchase with the 
view of presenting them to some church 
m the city. A member of the commit- 
tee having in preparation the decora- 
tion of the church for Easter was per- 
mitted to place the columns about the 
altar of the church as one of the cen- 
tral features of its adornment. The 
vases which belong to them stood high 
above the columns. Unfortunately the 
alabaster rims were cut off the pillars 
before they were taken from the gal- 
lery, so the only support to the vases 
was the socket sunk in the top of each 
pillar. During the services one vase 
toppled, fell and was crashed into 
pieces. It is said by those present that 
the face that betrayed the least emo- 
tion at the destruction of this valuable 
piece was that of its owner. 

If it is possible to have the vase re- 
paired, the two columns will be given 
complete to the Hennepin Avenue 
Church, of which Mr. Walker and fami- 
ly are attendants. 



;the father o f our p ublic library. 

T. B. Walker has Taken Time from His Immense Interests to 
Look After This Important Institution. 



(Minneapolis Journal, April 19, 1901.) 



T. B. Walker, president of our library 
board, is one of the most prominent 
and successful business men in the 
Northwest. He has been for many 
years prominently identified with the 
larger business interests of the city, 
and of points in the northern portion 
of the state. He came here soon after 
his school days and has grown up 
with Minneapolis and the state. He is 
largely interested in the pineries of 
Minnesota and his interests are larger 
than those of any other citizen, and it 
is stated, without contradiction, that he 
is more familiar with the forests of the 
state than any other person. Mr. Walk- 
er owns lumber mills at Crookston and 
Grand Forks. He is also extensively 
engaged in logging on the streams trib- 
utary to this city. He, with Maj. Camp, 
built and run the Pacific mills for many 
years, when Minneapolis was much 
smaller than it is now, and later he 
laid out the enterprising and successful 
suburb of St. Louis Park, the most 
valuable manufacturing addition to Min- 
neapolis. In other manufacturing direc- 
tions, Mr. Walker, with B. F. Nelson, 
owns the Hennepin Paper Company 
plant. He is the principal owner and 



has been the builder of the large Cen- 
tral Market, the finest in this country, 
The ramifications of his business in- 
terests extend to many other enter- 
prises which furnish employment to 
the citizens of Minneapolis. He has 
been foremost in establishing many 
manufacturing plants in the city and 
jobbing houses that otherwise would 
not have located in the Flour City, and 
he is always e.xpected to take a large 
interest in anything that is intended to 
build up the business interests of the 
city. lie has been the principal organ- 
izer and builder of our public library 
and has devoted many years of time 
to this beneficent municipal institu- 
tion. It was from the small beginnings 
in the old Athencum Library that he 
developed after 15 years of hard work 
the public library scheme. He has been 
at the head of the library board since 
its organization and during the late 
election was honored with a re-election, 
the vote in his favor being the largest 
received by any candidate on the Re- 
publican ticket for a position on the 
public boards. 

The art gallery of the library is prin- 
cipally filled with many of his fine pic- 
tures taken from his private collection. 



A GIANT MAN OF AFFAIRS. 



(Chicago Journal, May 16, 1907.) 



The life work of Thomas B. Walker 
stands out in bold relief in the annals 
of the men who have made Minne- 
apolis, the Northwest, and even the 
nation great. 

Possessed of wonderful business 
ability and keen foresight, he early ap- 
preciated the latent possibilities of de- 
veloping the varied resources of Min- 
nesota. With characteristic enterprise 
he plunged into the work, and his state 
and his city have reaped the benefi- 
cent result. 

Mr. Walker has engaged in many en- 
terprises and thousands of men are em- 
ployed by manufactories and industries 
he established and, through the appli- 
cation of his ingenious brain, devel- 
oped into vast institutions. 

But he has not used his talents to 
amass wealth from purely selfish mo- 
tives. Few cities have received as much 
from their richest citizens as Minne- 
apolis enjoys at the hands of Thomas 
B. Walker. Public and charitable insti- 
tutions alike have been the recipients 



of his generosity. To him as much as 
any other can be credited the fine pub- 
lic library the city boasts. 

However, in opening his private art 
gallery to the public Mr. Walker has 
given the city a treasure almost impos- 
sible to acquire otherwise, even with 
an immense sum of money. Meritori- 
ous art collections are not made in a 
day. Only years of search and the 
trained eye of a connoisseur, who cal- 
culates not cost, but loves art for art's 
sake alone, can assemble an array of 
rare masterpieces covering the best 
schools of five centuries. Minneapolis 
enjoys such an art exhibit and grate- 
fully acknowledges her gratitude. 

Air. Walker is also a man of letters 
and has written quite extensively. A 
deep student, he revels in the best 
thoughts of the great minds of the 
ages and, next to art, literature is his 
chief recreation. 

Approaching age does not deter Mr. 
Walker from active work, and his ex- 
tensive interests still have the benefit 
of his sagacious management. 






THE FAVORITE SONS 



The Votes are Counted and the Results Declared. 

During the fall of 1898, The Minne- The counting of the ballots has been 
apolis Times instituted a voting con- considerable labor, but the result at- 
test for the purpose of determining who tained shows that the favorite son con- 
were the most popular citizens of Min- test was a success. The list of favor- 
neapolis. Substantial prizes were of- ites shows that the balloting was ac- 
fered to those able to come the nearest cepted in earnest, and it would be a 
in selecting nine men who received man hard to please who should say the 
the largest number of votes. Very totals do not satisfactorily indicate the 
general interest was taken in the re- leaders of the community. The main 
suit and the verdict very fully repre- trouble seems to have been that Minne- 
sented public sentiment. From the is- apolis had a great many more than 10 
sue of The Minneapolis Times, of Sun- leaders. Upwards of 300 persons were 
day, October 1, is herewith given the voted for. A great many of these 
final summary: were joke ballots, containing the names 

T. B. Walker 8,967 of men who are simply notorious. 

Thomas Lowry 7,890 Others were quiet guys by friends of 

W. H. Eustis 5.360 the gentlemen voted for. A number of 

George A. Brackett 5,030 men received a substantial backing and, 

C. A. Pillsbury 4,991 though they did not play themselves 

S. C. Gale 4,867 for place, got a flattering endorsement 

J. S. Pillsbury 4,384 at the polls. It would be perhaps in- 

P. B.Winston 4,176 vidious to mention particularly those 

W. S. King 4,031 who did not get there, but such men 

Cyrus Northrop 3,045 as Senator Washburn and Loren 

The above are the chosen ones in the Fletcher were among the non-elect, 

favorite son balloting. The winner of though running mightily for place, 
the prize is T. H. Parsons, of 1908 The balloting for T. B. Walker was 

Franklin Avenue East, who sent in one especially heavy and would have been 

of the first ballots received and which heavier still had not some of the bal- 

contained the names of nine of the lots cast for him failed to comply with 

winners. the conditions. 






I 



TOt ^^Uu pi0nttt ^fc^^ 



ST. PAUL. MINN., NOV. 1. 1900. 



THOMAS BARLOW WALKER. 



"If this nation should enter upon the 
policy of free silver, low tariffs and the 
other elements of the Chicago-Kansas 
City platform, it would be the most 
serious and unfortunate step ever taken 
by any nation." This, in brief, is the view 
taken by Thomas Marlow Walker, of 
Minneapolis, of the attempt of the Dem- 
ocratic party to foist its heresies and 
seditious doctrines upon the people 
of this country. Just at this time, when 
the country is awaiting with impatience 
the result of one of the most significant 
presidential elections of the century, 
Mr. Walker is one of the Minnesota 
men who stand out as a conspicuous 
illustration of the best products of the 
Republican party. His career is such 
that it might well be studied by the 
young men who are to be the future 
standing army of the republic in poli- 
tics and business. Mr. Walker's name 
is familiar wherever the name and fame 
of Minneapolis are known, and no man 
has more honored his state and his city 
than has he. He is one of the band of 
strong men through whose efforts this 
section of the Northwest has been de- 
veloped and built up; and though he 
is not now an "active business man" 
in the sense in which the expression is 
generally used, his hand is felt in sev- 
erel successful business enterprises, and 
he is one of the most enthusiastic and 
enterprising Republicans of the North- 
west. Such men as Mr. Walker lend 
dignity and influence to the Republican 
party. The strength of his character 
and his business experience and obser- 
vation of necessity make him an ad- 
vocate of sound money and an oppo- 
nent of the destructive doctrines which 
are contained in the platform of the 
Democratic party. Mr. Walker believes 
that if the country should indorse the 
Democratic party it would mean that 
the Constitution, which is the bulwark 
of the republic, the educational system, 
which has placed the United States far 
in advance of other countries, and the 
church and press, both civilizing factors 
of great importance, that all these 
great influences for good had failed to 
raise the people above the point where 
they can be deceived by the catch 
phrases of the demagogue and the bla- 
tance utterances of the professional ora- 
tor and the political walking delegate. 
Mr. Walker's experience and observa- 
tions abroad have taught him that there 
is no thread of the free silver policy 



which can be of benefit to the country; 
that the Democratic party has advanced 
no sufficient reason why the people 
should give their support to the free 
silver or to other planks of its platform 
which are equally as bad. He sees, as do 
thousands of others, that the election 
of Bryan could come only through class 
hatred and through fanning the preju- 
dices of the masses against the busi- 
ness interests; prejudices engendered 
and worked up by such enemies of so- 
ciety as Altgeld, Tillman, Pettigrew and 
other political hybrids of that ilk. 

Such men as Mr. Walker are the 
mainstays of the country, and it is for 
the peurpose of setting forth this ex- 
ample to the younger man of the coun- 
try that the Pioneer Press here pro- 
duces in brief detail the story of his 
career. He started in life with little 
more in the way of capital than an ed- 
ucation he had received at Baldwin 
university, Berea, Ohio, and his native 
push and determination. It was at 
Xenia, Ohio, and on Feb. 1, 1840, that 
he was born, his parents being Piatt 
Bayless Walker and Anstis Barlow 
Walker, his mother's maiden name be- 
ing Barlow, which was conferred upon 
him as part of his given name. Both 
his mother's brothers were judges, one 
in Ohio and one in New York. While 
the subject of this sketch was still a 
boy, his father invested everything he 
had in an expedition to California. He 
had proceeded only a comparatively 
short distance on the overland route 
when he was stricken with cholera and 
died, leaving a widow and four young 
Children. The expedition continued 
on its way to California, but the widow 
and children, who were left practically 
penniless, never realized a cent as the 
result of the journey. 

It was a struggle for existence th|it 
young Walker faced as he grew toward 
manhood. Up to the time that he was 
sixteen years of age he experienced 
all the trials which beset a penniless 
orphan boy in a community where life 
was at best a struggle against adverse 
conditions. At sixteen he entered the 
university at Berea, where he remained 
until his education was completed, 
maintaining himself by hard work. He 
was determined to go through the en- 
tire course, and when he had finished 
it he had not only acquired the knowl- 
edge the university was competent to 
give him, but had obtained many les- 



sons of experience which were valuable 
to him in future years. 

When only nineteen years of age Mr. 
Walker began his business life as a 
traveling salesman, handling grind- 
stones for Fletcher Hulet, a manufac- 
turer at Berea. He also about this time 
went into business for himself, taking 
a contract to furnish cross-ties for a 
railroad being built into Paris, 111. He 
sequestered himself in a camp in the 
woods, living for eighteen months with 
the gang of men employed in getting 
out the ties. He filled the contract, 
but before he could collect his dues 
the railroad went into bankruptcy, and 
he lost several hundred dollars. He 
was nothing daunted, however, and im- 
mediately began looking around for 
another opening. 

After his experience in getting out 
cross-ties he made application for a 
position in the University of Wiscon- 
sin, but while waiting for a reply to 
his application he went to McGregor, 
Iowa, whence he was induced by J. M. 
Robinson to come to Minneapolis. He 
brought with him a quantity of grind- 
stones, consigned to D. C. Jones, of St. 
Paul. Leaving St. Paul, young Walker 
went up the river, stopping at what is 
now Minneapolis. He at once entered 
the employ of George B. Wright, and 
engaged to go into the woods ^ as a 
surveyor of government lands. This was 
a fortunate enterprise for Mr. Walker, 
as it brought him in touch with a vast 
territory of valuable and productive 
land, and gave him an opportunity of 
becoming the possessor of a consider- 
able portion of it, which later on he 
used to good acount. Within five years 
he had laid the foundation of his for- 
tune. He quickly saw the wonderful 
possibilities offered by the great forests 
of the Northwest, and as quickly as 
possible he became the owner of a large 
tract of pine land. After having ac- 
quired property in this section he con- 
sidered himself financially fitted to as- 
sume the responsibilities of married life, 
and returned to Berea, Ohio, where he 
married Miss Harriet G. Hulet, the 
daughter of his former employer. After 
his marriage he settled down in Min- 
neapolis, and since that time he has 
been so closely connected with the 
growth of the city, the histories of 
man and town are so intertwined with 
one another, they are in many respects 
identical. It would hardly be possible 
here to follow out in detail the sev- 
eral great undertakings he has been 
identified with, but it is sufficient to say 
that they have been of such a character 
as to have a lasting influence upon the 
Twin Cities, the State and the North- 
west. It must not be forgotten that it 
is due to him, perhaps more than to any 
other one individual, that the vast tim- 
ber resources of the Northwest became 



known to the world at large and that 
they were so early utilized, through 
transportation enterprises which made 
them available, with comparative ease, 
to large and small communities of men. 
As a result of his interest in timber Mr. 
Walker today is the largest owner of 
pine lands in the Upper Mississippi 
valley. 

Mr. Walker has never in late years 
permitted himself to give his time ex- 
clusively to business. He has always 
taken a great interest in public afifairs 
that were for the welfare of the com- 
munity. He was the first president of 
the library board, which position he has 
held continuously, and has acted in a 
similar capacity for the Society of Fine 
Arts. He has served for many years 
as a member of the board of managers 
of the state reform school; at the same 
time he has acted as president of one 
of the leading banks. Mr. Walker's 
literary and artistic tastes have found 
the most liberal and public-spirited ex- 
pression. Apart from his endeavors to 
bring the opportunities for cultivation 
and mental improvement within the 
reach of all, he exhibits his devotion to 
the higher pursuits in the possession of 
unrivaled literary and art works. His 
art gallery, which is regarded as one of 
the best of modern times, contains some 
of the most valuable oaintings extant. 
His collection includes "Napoleon in 
His Coronation Robes," J. Jules Bret- 
on's "Evening Call," Bouguereau's 
"Passing Shower," Rosa Bonheur's 
"Muleteers Crossing the Pyrenees," 
Corot's "Nymphs" and "Scenes in Old 
Rome," Boulanger's "Barber Shop of 
Lycinus," and many other of the works 
of the most famous masters to the num- 
ber of more than a hundred. 



Mr. T. B. Walker was found in the 
congregation of Bloomington Avenue 
church on Sunday morning. The pas- 
tor. Rev. C. F. Davis, invited Mr. 
Walker to speak to the congregation, 
to which he responded, delivering a 
most interesting address on "Messianic 
Prophecy." The pastor and people 
were very greatly pleased and profited 
by the address. — Midland Christian 
Advocate, May 22, 1901. 



. Between preaching and settling 
strikes Mr. T.B.Walker's leisure hours 
are pretty well taken up. 



NEW YORK COMMERCIAL. 



lEW YORK. ]/ 



MOSTLY PERSONAL. 



Mention Minneapolis to a business 
man almost anywhere the country over, 
and he will think at once of flour and 
lumber. With the man whose interests 
lie so that the first thought of Minne- 
apolis is of its fame as a milling center, 
there come to mind at once the names 
of Pillsbury, Crocker and Washburn. 
But to the lumberman or to the man in 
any way familiar with the lumber trade, 
Minneapolis suggests the name of T. 
B. Walker. The head of a lumbering 
industry of mammoth proportion, he is 
known in the trade the world over. 

There are so many different walks 
of life in which Mr. Walker stands 
prominent, and he has invaded so many 
widely varying spheres of efifort, that 
at his present age he represents a per- 
sonality so versatile that one hesitates 
as to the proper aspect in which to pre- 
sent him to public view. As a million- 
aire and a leading figure in the indus- 
trial life of the Northwest he is entitled 
to consideration, but even were he less 
active in business life, his service to his 
adopted city would make him worthy 
of distinction. Were he neither a busi- 
ness man nor a man distinguished for 
public-spiritedness, he would still hold 
a position of prominence from the fact 
that he is the owner of one of the finest 
collections of paintings in the country 
and of the finest private collection in 
the West. And aside from all these, 
Mr. Walker has the rather unique dis- 
tinction of being the largest owner of 
pine limber lands in the world. 

His father was Piatt B. Walker, pro- 
prietor of a small but profitable business 
at Xenia, Ohio, in early days. But 
young Tom Walker found himself 
thrown upon his own resources at the 
age of sixteen. He entered Baldwin 
University of Berea, Ohio, and attend- 
ed several terms, meanwhile acting as a 
salesman on the road during vacations. 
Eventually, with the coming of maturi- 
ty and a better knowledge of the road, 
he gave his entire time to the selling 
of goods. He traveled principally iji 
Indiana and Illinois. There was a rail- 
road then building through Paris, Illi- 
nois, and Mr. Walker, not yet twenty- 
one years of age, secured a contract to 
get out cross ties for it. He did well 
and after a year and a half had the 
foundation laid for a profitable business, 
when the company failed and he lost 
everything. Nothing was left but some 
bitter experience. Back to Ohio he 
went, and one day he walked in upon 
Fletcher Hulet, a manufacturer, and 
told him he wanted work. Hulet liked 



his looks and his courage and without 
delay put him on the road selling ma- 
chinery and tools. He covered the old 
territory so well that Hulet called him 
of? and put him out to make new terri- 
tory. He was successful and before 
long had extended his employer's busi- 
ness widely. One day while on his way 
up the Mississippi river he passed 
through Minneapolis, then a mere ham- 
let in the woods. The possibilities of 
the site struck him forcibly, and he de- 
cided that here was the place to locate 
permanently. 

For two years he was a Government 
surveyor and then he entered the rail- 
road field and was one of the party that 
ran the lines for the St. Paul and Du- 
luth Railroad, now a part of the great 
Northern Pacific system. Having be- 
come familiar with the timber resources 
of the state he resolved to embark in the 
lumber business. 

Dr. Levi Butler and Howard Mills 
were men who had some capital. Mr. 
Walker had youth, health, experience 
and the confidence of everyone w'ho 
knew him. The firm of Butler, Mills & 
Walker thus came into existence, Walk- 
er's experience and ability going in 
against money of the others. The firm 
prospered. In time Walker branched 
out and became associated with Henry 
T. Wells in pine land deals. He built 
mills at Grand Forks, North Dakota, 
and at Crookston, IMinnesota. In com- 
pany with H. C. Akeley he invaded the 
unbroken forests of the wilder parts 
of the State, building mills and founding 
towns. Eventually, his influence ex- 
tended to the lumber industry in all 
parts of Minnesota and the Dakot.is, 
and he built up one of tlie largest for- 
tunes in the Nortliwcst. 

Having conquered this great field, he 
turned his attention to the Pacific coast 
and in 1894 began those i)urchases of 
pine lands in the Mt. Shasta district 
which, continued to this day, have made 
him the largest owner of timber lands 
in the world. Even now Mr. Walker 
is engaged in perfecting plans for a rail- 
road that is to penetrate that region 
and bring the timber down to the mar- 
ket. 

With all the attention required to 
manage the afTairs of these timber and 
land companies, Mr. Walker has yet 
found time to attend to loc'l business 
alTairs. He built the manufacturing sub- 
urb of St. Louis Park, where the plant 
of the Minnesota Beet Sugar Company 
is located. Later he constructed a line 
of street railway connecting that sub- 



urb with Minneapolis, In Minneapolis 
he built many business structures, chief 
among which are the Central Market 
and Commission Row, where the pro- 
duce trade of the city is now concen- 
trated. 

Mr. Walker is the father of the pub- 
lic library of Minneapolis. He helped 
organize it and gave liberally of his 
means to beautify it. More than fifty 
pictures went from the Walker collec- 
tion for its adornment. 

The Walker residence stands well 
down town, at Hennepin avenue and 
Eighth street, and business has grown 
up to it and beyond it. It is the only 
large residence still remaining so far 
down town and must give way before 
many more years to the march of im- 
provement. In this house there is a 



collection of paintings whose excellence 
has helped spread the fame of Minne- 
apolis over the land. Through the gen- 
erosity of the owner the house is open 
to the public every afternoon except 
Sunday. Here may be found pictures 
from the world's greatest masters, both 
ancient and modern. 

In another part of the large house is 
Mr. Walker's library, one of the finest 
private collections of rare books in the 
country. Mr. Walker is a member of 
the National Art Society, President of 
the Minneapolis Fine Arts Society, a 
member and one of the principal sup- 
porters of the Academy of Science. 

Mr. and Mrs. Walker have seven 
children. There are five sons, of whom 
four are associated in business with 
their father. 



PROSPERITY WAVE REACHING HEIGHT. 



Millionaire Lumberman Talks to the Daily News on Financial 
Matters.— He Gives a Warning. 

During the latter part of March, 1909, average man is led to believe — at least 
The Minneapolis Daily News published not in the northwest. 
a series of interviews with prominent 
men on some of the problems of the 
day. Among those quoted and whose 
picture appeared in these articles were 
John D. Rockefeller, James J. Hill, 
Leslie M. Shaw and T. B. Walker. 

The following is the introduction and 
substance of interview with Mr. Walk- 
er in The Daily Legal News on March 
29, 1907: 

T. B. Walker, the lumber king, re- 
puted worth more than $100,000,000, 
and perhaps the man who is in closest 
touch with the financial and business 
life of the Northwest, this morning 
granted The Daily News an exclusive 
interview in which he freely expressed 
his mind on a number of subjects now 
uppermost in the minds of the busi- 
ness world. 

"There is no actual reason why pros- 
perity might not continue indefinitely. 
That it will not so continue is evidenced 
by the erratic, prejudiced views that 
the public are led to adopt — views that 
are resulting in such a hostile attitude 
of the public toward useful and valuable 
personal factors in our industrial life, 
that it comes to be a question of how 
long it will take to destroy confidence 
in the future and break down the ability 
of the most useful and strenuous work- 
ers to maintain that large fractional 
part of the machinery of our industrial 
system on which our prosperity to a 
very essential degree depends. 

"All this talk about rebates is large- 
ly rot. The railroads have never 
granted rebates to the e.xtent that the 



Never Got a Rebate. 

"For 35 years I have been one of the 
heaviest shippers in the country, ship- 
ping millions of tons a year, and have 
never received a single dollar from the 
roads that way. 

"The railroads are not now earning 
any too much, and it is dangerous for 
the country to force them to lower 
rates now, when all materials are up 
in price and labor is clamoring for 
more pay." 

About Proposed Strike. 

In connection with the railroad strike 
possibilities this spring, Mr. Walker 
would have the railroads propose, thru 
the interstate commerce commission, 
that the men be paid higher wages if 
it is found that they, as a class, are 
earning less than men in other walks 
of life — but with the understanding that 
the roads be permitted to raise rates to 
cover the additional expense. 

In conclusion Mr. Walker gave a 
word of warning against evil days to 
come. 

Prosperity's Wave. 

"The prosperity wave of our coun- 
try is fast reaching its extreme height, 
and the country must be prepared for 
the day when it will begin to recede. 
When prices begin to drop, when the 
farmers hide their dollars in the barn 
instead of banking them, when labor 
begins to be plentiful and the factories 
begin to close, then the country will 
be sorry if it hastened the evil day by 
foolish legislation." 



A HALF CENTURY OF MINNEAPOLIS. 



A Concise Historical Sketch of the Period of Early Settlement; 

The Wonderful Work of City Building in Fifty Years. The 

Makers of Minneapolis History. By Horace B. Hudson. 



Published at Minneapolis, 1907. 



WALKER, Thomas Barlow. — The 
career of a man who makes money may 
or may not be interesting. There is a 
glamor about money-making which lasts 
while the man lives and while his oper- 
ations are being carried on. But if he 
has done nothing else his fame is dis- 
sipated even before his fortune is scat- 
tered. The Northwest has been for- 
tunate in the number of men who made 
money with a purpose and who left 
behind not merely the tangible evi- 
dences of their business genius, but 
ideas unconnected with money-making 
as well. If Thomas B. Walker, the 
subject of this sketch, had never done 
anything but make money, perhaps it 
would be unnecessary to go further 
than to record the fact. But when one 
looks at the busy life of Mr. Walker, 
his most distinct impression is not that 
of a money-making machine, but of a 
life with a purpose, a purpose to hold 
to a certain conception of character and 
not to allow anything to detract from 
that viewpoint of existence. Mr. Walk- 
er has not only become a local authori- 
ty upon the material growth of Minne- 
apolis, and one of the largest contribu- 
tors to it, but stands today as one of the 
strongest bulwarks of moral Minneapo- 
lis, while in the realm of the fine arts 
he is the city's best example of the man 
who has the genius to do things without 
parade and inspire others without coer- 
cion. One of the first things a town 
growing into the metropolitan class de- 
sires is a public library. Mr. Walker 
was one of the first who insisted that 
Minneapolis should have a library and 
have an adequate one, and that it should 
be entirely one. The library was erect- 
ed, equipped, and Mr. Walker appoint- 
ed one of the first directors, and he has 
been re-elected term after term by a 
vote which testifies that whatever of 
detraction there may be near a man 
the general public sees and appreciates 
his work. In working for a public 
library, Mr. Walker had in mind that 
Minneapolis when she emerged from 
the frontier stage must develop taste in 
the fine arts. He has labored for the 
society of fine arts which is today in a 
position to render valuable service to 
the boys and girls of Minneapolis who 
are conscious of artistic taste and the 
desire to express it. Not only that, but 
he has gathered from the far corners 
of the earth a most complete collection 



of the masterpieces of art to which the 
public has free access. 

The trend of Mr. Walker's mind is 
not distinctively commercial. His first 
success in life was gained in a position 
which brought out the mathematical 
genius. This mathematical trend, to- 
gether with his idealism, no doubt ac- 
counts for the man of today. Given a 
problem in business, his deductions are 
swift and sure, but they go beyond the 
mere present, the mathematical and 
logical side being reinforced by the 
ideal. The turning point in Mr. Walk- 
er's career was undoubtedly reached 
when he was obliged to decline an elec- 
tion to the chair of mathematics in Wis- 
consin University, because of arrange- 
ments already made to enter the gov- 
ernment survey. The latter employ- 
ment brought him into connection with 
the great lumber industry of the coun- 
try and it is on lumber that his fortune 
rests. When Mr. Walker first came to 
Minnesota he studied the timber prob- 
lem from both the practical and the 
ideal standpoint. Practically and math- 
ematically he was convinced that the 
future of the section was more intimate- 
ly related to the wood crop than the 
wheat crop. States might change their 
staple. California has changed hers 
three times, being successively first in 
the production of gold, wheat and fruit. 
She might change it again. Minnesota 
might change hers from wheat to dairy- 
ing, and probably will, but there was 
no possibility of a change in the shelter 
problem. Trees grew too slowly for 
that. Thus far the problem was capable 
of a mathematical solution. Many lum- 
bermen solved it in that way, shinned 
the land, took their profits and in- 
vested them in other lines. But Mr. 
Walker could not view the matter en- 
tirely from the practical standpoint. He 
wrought, wrote and pleaded for a 
broader conception of the future of the 
state than was involved in marketing 
the pine at the earliest possible mo- 
ment: and, while the pressure of com- 
petition compelled him in a measure to 
join the procession of manufacturers, he 
did not yield his ideals, and today when 
many of his contemporaries have aban- 
doned the field, he has merely enlarged 
his operations and holds now the larg- 
est reserve of forest in California ever 
bought by private capital. It is organ- 
ized not merely to secure legitimate 



profits but to perpetuate the value of 
the land by the practical application of 
the principles of commercial forestry. 
In this connection it is curious what 
a unanimity has marked the family in 
the matter of business. All of Mr. 
Walker's five sons are interested with 
him in lumber. Each has a department 
and each has won his spurs in his de- 
partment. Of Mr. Walker's work for 
commercial Minneapolis it is unneces- 
sary to speak at length. It speaks for 
itself in the establishment of a public 
market second to scarcely any other 
in the country, and in his bringing forth 
the capital with which to secure the 
Butler Brothers for the city. No other 
man in the city could command the 
capital with which to make this vital 
improvement in the wholesale facilities 
of Minneapolis, and Mr. Walker in com- 
ing forward knew that he was drawing 
down money that was capable of earn- 
ing greater returns elsewhere. Again 
he took money out of his own field of 
endeavor and going out to St. Louis 
Park built a manufacturing suburb at 



a time when Minneapolis was face to 
face with the fact that she could not 
always endure as a great city based on 
only two industries, one of which ap- 
parently had reached its zenith and 
the other its decline. In dealing with 
so active a life as that of Mr. Walker, 
in sketch, one must necessarily leave 
out many interesting details, but it 
is the big things which indicate the 
trend, as the peaks show the direction 
of the mountain range. The achieve- 
ments of Mr. Walker have not been 
entirely unmixed with disappointments 
and mistakes, but the sum of it is that 
he has kept his ideals and succeeded 
with them. He has never compromised 
his convictions upon any question, po- 
litical, social or religious. The life of 
such a man is worth more to a com- 
munity than his material successes. It 
is inspiration to those who, witnessing 
the failures of high principles and sad- 
dened by the apparent incapacity of 
moral ideals to cope with practical con- 
ditions, are cheered by the thought that 
it is not impossible. — J. G. 



A LUCKY ACCIDENT. 



T. B. Walker Didn't Know of Minneapolis, He Happened Here. 

(Minneapolis Tribune.) 



Thomas B. Walker came to the city 
by chance, a lucky accident for himself 
as well as for the city. The story of 
how he happened to is a long one. Sev- 
eral years ago, some forty-odd, he was 
walking along the road near Berea, O., 
his former home, impressed with the 
belief that he ought to emigrate to the 
West and grow up with a new country, 
if he were to make the most of the 
opportunities of life. This was in the 
latter part of the forties, and after 
completing his education, which was 
gained by dint of much hard work and 
self-sacrifice, the Minneapolis lumber 
king started out for the Northwest, 
his future course in life had not been 
fully determined upon. 

In Madison he made application for 
a professorship in the state university. 
Young and rather insignificant looking, 
the president of the college sized up Mr. 
Walker as a person who would scarce- 
ly make a suitable instructor. He, how- 
ever, decided to give to him the op- 
portunity to prove what he could do, 
and turning to one of the geometries 
then in use he pointed out an intricate 
problem and asked young Walker if he 
could solve it. The student did so, and 
as it was one that had previously been 
attempted by the student body of the 
college without a successful solution be- 
ing reached, Mr. Walker rose several 



thousand per cent in the mind of the 
president. He was recommended for a 
position; but a life as a pedagogue did 
not offer the advantages that other 
branches might, and he decided to 
push on farther west. At Dubuque, 
Iowa, he arrived a few days later and 
was registered at one of the leading 
hotels when he chanced to sit down be- 
side one of the other guests on the 
veranda. Conversation was engaged in 
between the two, and finding out that 
"Tom" Walker was a surveyor, the 
gentleman recommended to him that he 
come to Minneapolis and told him that 
he knew where he could secure a posi- 
tion in this town. 

"Where is Minneapolis?" was asked, 
Mr. Walker never having heard of the 
place. 

"Oh, it's up the river a few miles 
above St. Paul," was the reply. 

Twenty minutes later T. B. Walker 
was on board a river boat northward 
bound, and within a day or two he 
had reached this city, secured the posi- 
tion of survej'or for a lumberman oper- 
ating here at the time, and was on his 
way northward to the pine region of 
Minnesota. This city was his future 
basis of operations, and from that time 
Mr. Walker began to climb the ladder 
of business and success until he has 
reached the high plane he occupies to- 
day. 




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